Immortal
by Plesiosaur
Summary: Role reversal real world Bubbline AU. All Marceline needs is a musician willing to work for basically free so she can finish her lab work, write up her thesis and live up to the memory of her late father. All Bubblegum wants is to help out with some interesting science for the summer and have a chance to learn about stuff she missed out on in school. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**Well I'm working through the requests, bit by bit. This one was a request by the lovely FantasticMxFox who requested a real world Role Reversal AU. So in this universe we have serious scientist Marceline and local musician Bubblegum, which I won't lie was quite challenging to think of a decent backstory for why they chose the opposite paths from usual. But I think I got it all sorted out. It might not all be completely obvious at first but I have some more backstory planned for the next few chapters too, at the moment it's looking like it's gonna be a 5 chapter medium length story. Now that I'm in the swing of it I'm enjoying writing it more and more.**

 **So drop a review if you have thoughts, I'd love to know what you think! But be aware that if something doesn't quite make sense there's a good chance we'll get to that in the next chapter or two.**

 **Content Warning: Openings that won't make a huge amount of sense until the end of the story, lab animals, mystery.**

* * *

 _Violins. Where were they coming from? Violins and... heavy drums? It was an unusual combination but not jarring; it gelled weirdly and after a minute or two she became aware that she was trying to tap her foot along with the music. It wasn't responding too well and that's when she realised that she was lying someplace soft with her eyes closed. But that music, it hummed through her brain and it didn't stop or quieten at all; it just changed subtly as her thoughts did. When the light grew brighter beyond her closed eyelids the pitch of the violins changed and she was aware of a solid bassline like a heartbeat underneath it all. Was it her heartbeat?_

 _Words flowed in with the music. Oh, it was one of those very modern kinds of music wasn't it? With words that were sort unusual, like... postmodern? She thought that was the term for it anyway, when the words were just like normal stuff that didn't really follow a pattern or theme. They didn't rhyme but they fit perfectly around the odd music anyway._

 _"She's starting to come around." someone sang quietly beneath the complex rhythms of the drums._

 _"Sweetie, can you hear me?"_

 _She knew that voice. Why was her Mum singing? It was a hallucination or something, right? Or a dream. Yeah, it was a weird dream. That made a sort of sense, it was an explanation anyway. And she struggled against the leaden weights that seemed to be attached to her eyelids and finally succeeded in getting them to open onto bright blurry lights. They resolved into the walls of a hospital room, soft pale pink walls covered in stencils of daisies. She recognosed those too, she was in a private room on the children's ward._

 _"Mum?" she rasped, confused._

 _"Sweetie, how are you? They said the surgery went well, how do you feel?" her mother crooned softly, following the bass instead of the fading violin melody._

 _"C'n you turn the music off?" she asked instead. What surgery? Why did her head feel heavy? There was a big hole in her recent memory, like she'd accidentally turned a couple of pages ahead in a book and ended up at the start of the next chapter. It made no sense. Where was the music coming from?_

 _"Sweetheart, nobody's playing any music." her Mum sang with a confused frown._

 _"But... th'singing..."_

 _The doctors said later it was very rare, that nobody was really to blame for it. Surgically acquired synaesthesia had only been documented in a handful of cases. Temporal lobe resectioning was fairly simple insofar as brain surgery ever could be but it would never be completely free of the risk of complications. They wanted to study her but being a stubborn thirteen year old she refused, clammed up every time anyone asked about the effects of the surgery. Still, it was there all the time, playing like a personal jukebox in the very back of her brain. And every night when she took her medication and lay down to sleep the music swelled, filled her whole head until she felt like her teeth were vibrating with it. It was relentless, it was inside her. And piece by piece she slowly learned to live with it until she couldn't remember a time when there had ever been silence._

...

"Jake."

He leapt almost a clear foot off the ground; he hadn't even known she was in the building yet, much less standing right behind him. Damn woman walked on cat paws sometimes, he grumbled in the privacy of his own brain as he tried to calm the adrenaline spike.

"Marcy. Good morning, coffee's not brewed yet. I wasn't expecting you in this early-"

"Why is there a manic pixie dream girl in my laboratory?" she cut him off flatly.

"A mani- oh! That's the musician we hired for the emotion study! She didn't introduce herself?" he asked, turning to face his colleague's blank, unimpressed stare.

"I didn't give her the opportunity. She's dressed like a giant fantasy cupcake, why is she here? Is this really the best we could do?"

"She didn't want paying so... honestly? Yeah, she's the best we could do. All the other pros I called wanted an hourly rate outside of our budget. Besides, she's a buddy of Finn's, I'm trying to set them up since he's soooo in love with her and all. Her name's Bubblegum." Jake explained. He was getting more and anxious the longer he spoke since Marceline was staring at him like he'd left a warm turd on her desk. That look never boded well, even worse than usual with her. Finn had been heard to remark that the stick up Marcy's ass had a stick up its ass but luckily not within her earshot or else he'd be lying in an unmarked grave someplace. Jake managed to meet her steely gaze for a couple of seconds before looking down guiltily. Marcy always managed to make him feel guilty even if he'd done nothing wrong.

"No it isn't. Nobody is named Bubblegum because that is not a name. Get rid of her, Jake." she commanded before sweeping from the postgrad lounge and presumably away to their cramped office while he fired the only musician in the city willing to work for free.

Nope, not happening. Not when he'd faithfully promised Finn that signing up as a tech intern for them that summer meant spending a lot of time with his crush, not when they all had their theses riding on the results of the experiments. She was a good musician, she was free and she was also pretty much from what Jake could tell the Anti-Marcy. It might be nice to have someone cheerful around for once. But when Jake finally finished brewing the coffee and took it down to their office it seemed like he'd been saved the trouble of making his case because Finn's impassioned voice could be heard begging for Bubblegum to stay right through the door.

"-nd I promised her she'd be able to hang around for the summer, and I can't let her down! You don't understand, Marcy! This girl is _special_ , you've gotta at least talk to her before you write her off! Come on, you're not usually the judgmental type!"

"Fine, _fine_. I haven't had my damn coffee yet so if you'd just shut the fuck up and let me read this stuff then your dumb Cupcake Goth can stay." Marcy growled as Jake shouldered the door open.

"It's called _Pastel Goth_. It's cute, you should look it up on Pinterest." Finn retorted.

"Part of the deal was shutting the fuck up." Marcy reminded him with a scowl.

Jake handed her a coffee and shot his younger brother an apologetic looking smile. Finn just rolled his eyes and shrugged before unfolding from where he'd been leaning on the desk and slouching off out of the doorway towards the lab where his crush was setting up her laptop and equipment. Marcy avoided Jake's eyes and sipped her coffee, reading through what he was certain would be their experimental data again on her desktop monitor. He waited, counting silently in his head. Marceline had been his friend since their first year as undergrads, he knew her pretty well. Any second-

"Don't say it." she growled. Jake smiled and sipped his coffee. "I mean it. It's not funny. Just, shut up, ok? I don't like your stupid kid brother or the stupid goth marshmallow he wants to have stupid babies with. I also don't like being whined at when I'm trying to work. It was one hundred per cent an attempt to shut him up. So don't even say it."

Jake just raised his eyebrows and waited some more.

"I'm not going to be nice to her." Marcy announced. "She dresses like a deranged toddler."

Jake shrugged; he wasn't in any position to criticize anyone else's fashion choices since he usually just wore whatever his girlfriend said he looked presentable in.

"I bet she doesn't even know anything about science. I bet she's one of these eco-hippy save-the-whales types who wants to free all the poor ickle bunnies and ratties that get used in nasty science- and she's alone in my lab, with the rats, with _Finn_ -"

Marcy's face paled and she shot upright from her seat, hurrying to the door and muttering under her breath. Jake still didn't say anything, just took a long drink of coffee and let out a contented sigh. Finn was flirting his butt off with the cute girl he liked, Marcy was out being her usual uptight self trying to ruin their fun and he had the whole office to himself. He kicked his shoes off and went to rest them on his desk, tilting back in his chair, when his phone buzzed with a message. He pulled it out and rolled his eyes. It was from Marcy, clearly they'd been sharing an office for way too long.

 _If the desk smells like feet when I get back you're in trouble._

Jake sighed and put his feet back on the floor. Even from three rooms away Marceline still found a way to be a massive buzzkill.

...

"Hi, nice to meet you. I'm Bubblegum. This place is _amazing_ , thank you so much for letting me help out!"

Marceline could almost feel her teeth grinding together with annoyance. She pointed to a lab stool and repressed the eye roll she could feel trying to force itself across her face.

"Sit there and don't touch anything." she growled. The girl just nodded happily and hummed to herself, sliding onto the seat with her laptop. "Finn, go get the rats."

He hurried into the prep room and came back with a large carry cage with three grey rats inside. Bubblegum 'awwww'd as soon as she saw them and Finn put the cage down right in front of her so she could examine them.

"Hi there little cuties, are you gonna help us with science? Aww look, that one has a little white chin! What are their names?" she cooed happily.

"They're literally lab rats, they don't have names." Marcy replied with a curl of her lip.

"I call the chubby one Scabbers." Finn supplied helpfully. "Like in Harry Potter."

"That's adorable, so long as he's not really a traitor in disguise. But you're too cute to be a traitor, aren't you sweetheart? Can I hold him?" Bubblegum asked.

"No. First of all, they're all female. Second, they're _lab rats_ , they're not pets. And I'm gonna need you two to shut up and let me explain what we're doing today. You, Pink Goth, what's your real name?" Marcy ground out between her teeth. There wasn't enough coffee in the world to make her cheerful against the combined forces of Finn and Not-Bubblegum-Because-That's-Not-A-Name.

"Um, it's Bonnie. Bubblegum's my stage name. You know, Princess Bubblegum? The DJ? But, uh, you can just call me Bonnie." the girl replied softly, hopefully finally noticing that she was pissing Marceline the fuck off with her relentless good mood.

"Bonnie. Right, that's actually a name. Ok, you can call me Dr Abadeer-"

"Marcy come on, you're not a doctor yet. Her name is Marceline, you can just call her Marcy like everyone else does." Finn interjected with a frown.

"Or whatever, listen to Finn because this is totally his research laboratory and not an unpaid internship he's doing as a favour to his brother. My _friends_ call me Marcy." she muttered angrily. "I've got to go get some paperwork and set some things up. Wait here and don't touch any of my equipment and for the love of God, I don't want you handling the rats while I'm gone. They need as little human interaction as possible."

She spun on her heel and strode away, leaving them both staring after her. They could hear the _click click!_ of her angry footfalls disappearing down the corridor and then the door onto the stairwell very nearly slammed shut. Even Finn who was perfectly happy to admit he had no idea how to read women's moods knew she was pissed about Bubblegum being there.

"Is she like that with everyone?" Bubblegum asked quietly. Finn sighed and ran a hand through his hair before he replied.

"Pretty much. Don't take it personal, Marcy's just super focused on her work. Like, she needs to be the very best scientist who ever lived or something. Her mother puts a lot of pressure on her and her aunt is some kinda big name in science too. She just thinks she's got a ton to prove I guess. But she's fun when she loosens up a little, you just gotta get past the spiky exterior. Listen, don't say I told you this. But Jake said one time she got drunk and opened up to him, like way up. Her father died when she was little and her Mum put a ton of pressure on her to be this high achieving genius in his memory because he was super clever or something. So she's always pushing herself too hard to please her Mum and live up to her Dad's memory and stuff, I don't think she means to be rude to people. Marcy's just... I guess she's still traumatised and junk. But I didn't tell you that, alright?"

"Of course. Poor girl, she must be dealing with a lot. Maybe I could try to help." Bubblegum murmured, gazing thoughtfully at the door Marceline had disappeared through.

Finn rolled his eyes. There were a lot of things he found attractive about Bubblegum; her soft pink dyed hair, her gorgeous smile, her sunny disposition and boundless optimism. But he had a bad feeling that if she was planning on pitting her enthusiasm against Marceline's limitless ill humour all that would happen would be that Bubblegum would end up emotionally drained and upset. He'd never seen her less than perfectly composed and cheerful so the thought of suddenly having to comfort an emotional Bubblegum was unexpectedly terrifying.

"Look, just don't take it personally if she ignores you, is rude to you or just flat out tells you to fuck off. Jake's about the closest friend she has and even he wants to strangle her half the time. We'll just get this experiment out of the way and maybe you and me could go grab a coffee or something?" Finn added hopefully.

"I was hoping to stay around the lab, maybe see if there's anything they need some help with. Science is so amazing, you know? I wish I'd have the chance to study it more, I was gonna ask Jake about his thesis and the research they do here." Bubblegum replied smoothly. Finn wasn't stupid although he sometimes acted like it. He knew when he was being politely brushed off.

"Well, maybe another time then. You wanna have a quick snuggle with the ratties?"

"But Marcy said not to."

"Yeah, she says a lot of things. I won't tell. Besides, they're gonna need to get used to you, right?"

...

The walls of the laboratory vibrated with the outlandish wailing coming from Bubblegum's laptop speakers. Marceline was beginning to get a headache, although she wasn't sure if that was a product of having been grinding her teeth constantly all morning or the sheer volume of noise assaulting her eardrums.

"Do you have anything a bit less... less?" she asked loudly. Bubblegum tapped the keyboard and the music stopped. Marceline sighed quietly in relief.

"What kinda effect are you looking for?" she asked, flicking through her playlists.

"Well it's a study of emotion. We need happy music. The point is that these rats have been genetically modified to model human depression and we want to see if music can be used therapeutically to increase their serotonin." Jake explained.

"So the ratties are depressed? Poor guys. Let me see if I can find something for that."

There went Marcy's grinding teeth again. And she wasn't completely sure if it was possible but she could very well be in danger of pulling a muscle in her eye from all the rolling they'd been doing. Of course Bubblegum was sad that the rats had depression, _of course_.

"We could have just played them a record ourselves." Marcy muttered to herself. Jake shot her a look and she shrugged. "Just saying."

"Previous studies established that results are more distinct when the music is live." he replied.

"So why haven't we got a pianist in here instead of a girl on her laptop?"

Jake took a breath to reply but he never managed to find the words because the next moment a soft and undeniably beautiful piece of piano music was quivering through the air around them. It was unearthly, like nothing he'd ever heard before. Even Marceline looked stunned and she usually tried to keep her face as expressionless as possible.

"This is a piece I wrote a few months ago, I've not actually played it for anyone else yet. Do you like it? I actually think it turned out quite well, it's almost pretty. Not as good as it was in my head but... yeah, it never is. I can bring my keyboard tomorrow if you want, I didn't realise you would need me to play it live, I'm sorry." Bubblegum announced like it was the most casual thing in the world.

"You... Ok. Yeah. Bring your keyboard." Marceline murmured, too shocked to even think of anything sarcastic to say.

"Guys, look at the rats." Finn breathed. Everyone's attention whipped back to the cage where the rat with the milky white spot on her chin was standing up on her hind legs, sniffling the air and looking around a lot more attentively than usual.

"Oh, Science likes it!" Bubblegum smiled.

"Did you name the lab rat Science?" Marcy asked.

"Yes! Then we'll always have Science on our side! I thought it was funny." she explained, turning to beam at the dark haired woman.

Bubblegum's smile was so disarming and genuine that for a moment Marceline was lost for words. How could she still be so happy and pleasant when Marcy had tried her hardest for hours to scare the other girl away? Even her hundred yard death glare hadn't had any effect. Marceline had never met someone so completely impervious to her attempts to destroy them and it was equal parts infuriating and intriguing. Despite her best efforts she found herself wondering about the girl with pink hair. Surely Bubblegum was more than averagely aware of the stereotypes about the kind of girls who wore whimsical rainbow sneakers and bright turquoise lipstick and carried around handmade unicorn bags? Didn't she want people to take her seriously? And that septum piercing was just asking for trouble, if she got hit in the face then the damage it would cause her nose when it got ripped out wouldn't be pretty at all. But there she was smiling around happily like the world was made of rainbows and candy. It made no damn sense, none at all. And Marceline didn't like things that didn't make sense. So as much as she wanted the annoying girl out of her lab and out of her life as quickly as possible a small part of her was curious, wanted to know what the hell was going on with her. She could see why Finn was so hopelessly in love with Bubblegum at least; he probably thought she was going to take him on some eccentric romantic adventure and open his eyes to the wonder and intoxication of simply being alive. That was usually what guys wanted from girls like her, right? Never mind that she might have motivations and desires of her own, hopes and dreams for potential relationships that didn't revolve around showing soulful, brooding heroes the beauty of living in the moment. Urgh, Finn probably thought he was in his very own Scott Pilgrim comic or something.

"I'm gonna take an early lunch." Marcy announced instead.

What else could she say? All of the strange thoughts that revolved around the annoying pink haired girl with the stupid nickname had to kept in strict lockdown, she didn't want anyone to think she actually liked the pastel monstrosity. She was still shaking her head to herself and wondering what the hell Jake had gotten her into as she slid into her usual spot on the grass behind the building and pulled her lunch out of her bag. It was a warm day and Marceline scowled darkly at the sun, squinting up as it glared back. Of course she'd left her sunglasses in her car and she didn't want to have to walk all the way around the damn building to go fetch them. Suddenly the intense light was shaded by something frilly and lilac and covered in smiling cupcakes.

"I always carry a parasol for days like this." a cheerful voice announced. Yep, there went the tiny bits of good mood Marcy had been working at.

"Scared of getting cancer or something?"

"You'd be amazed but pink isn't my natural hair colour. I'm actually a redhead, my skin's too fair to handle much in the way of UV. And I can't stand the way sunscreen smells so either I use the parasol or I get third degree burns on sunny days."

"You know, there's a cafeteria inside. And I'm sure Jake would let you into the postgrad lounge." Marceline ground out in annoyance. Bubblegum just shrugged and took a seat next to her, still holding the parasol above both their heads.

"I like being outside. It's too loud in there, too many voices." she replied softly. "I don't mind your voice though. Do you mind if I sit here? It's quieter outside."

"Depends. Are you good at eating silently?" Marcy sniped. Bubblegum just nodded and pulled out her own bag of sandwiches. They ate without a word, listening to the rustle of the breeze through trees flush with heavy shrouds of summer leaves and the distant hum of traffic and voices from the city all around them. With the balmy air and lull of almost-silence it was difficult to maintain a decent level of animosity; Marceline found her dislike of the other girl melting under the warmth of the midday sun.

"Why'd you dress like that?" she finally asked, curiosity finally overtaking her defences.

"Because life's too short." Bubblegum replied cryptically, still talking in a soft, quiet voice. Marceline frowned.

"No it isn't. Life's literally the longest thing that will ever happen to you."

Bubblegum didn't reply, just gazed out at some blackbirds rooting for bugs on the opposite side of the grass. She nodded, finally.

"And if the longest thing you'll ever do is still too short, what then?" she murmured. Then she stood, stretched and picked up her fluffy unicorn bag. "I'm heading back in, I promised Finn to listen to some music he wanted to show me. Keep the parasol for now, I'll get it back from you later."

Marceline watched her go, sprinting up the steps into the back door of their building with enviable ease for someone who was wearing six inch high platform sneakers. Well, Bubblegum was apparently an enigma. She didn't like places that were too loud but she played some pretty large local gigs where presumably the music was loud enough to make hearing anything else at all difficult. Marceline had taken a moment to google 'DJ Princess Bubblegum' and had to admit she was reluctantly impressed with the size of crowds the other girl could command. But she thought life was too short to take seriously then spoke philosophically about it like she'd really thought it all thought, weighed up both sides of the argument before coming to the conclusion that she'd just be a musician and a pastel goth and enjoy herself. Clearly she was smart. It would be easy to dismiss her as one of dumb Finn's dumb friends but Marcy had the feeling there was a lot more to the pink haired girl than met the eye and despite herself she was completely unable to repress her burning curiosity. Damn Jake and his weird friends, she really didn't need the distraction of a mystery to unravel when she was trying to focus so hard on making her mother proud and living up to her father's memory.


	2. Chapter 2

**WHAAAATTT ANOTHER DOUBLE UPDATE DAY?**

 **That's right fanchildren, I'm on a roll plus there is actually nothing else to do for the next six hours of my nightshift plus most everything I've been posting recently was already half finished and just needed a little extra love before it was ready. I know I've been bombarding you with updates recently but, does anyone really mind? Seriously, let me know if you want me to post _less_ often.**

 **As always a review to let me know what you think would be perfection itself, and a HUUUUGE shoutout to the amazing FantasticMxFox for this prompt. And an extremely honourable mention to the amazing abelmayfair for her idea bouncing/proofing skills, and to my gorgeous girlfriend for being gorgeous and amazing and believing in me. And all my fans and readers, I love you guys.**

 **Content Warning: minor coffee related injury, swearing, mysteries.**

* * *

The first morning that Marceline walked into the postgrad lounge and Bubblegum handed her a mug of coffee with a cheerful smile she didn't know what to say and just grunted in acknowledgement. It was a frothy concoction of whipped cream and syrup shots and sprinkles. Marcy took one disgusted glance at it before grimacing and making a show of tossing it in the trash; no way she was drinking that frothy, sugary crap. The annoyingly cheerful girl wearing a pale lilac My Little Pony shirt that day just smiled widely and nodded like she'd made an interesting discovery.

Next day Marceline stormed in through the doors, late and in an extra foul mood, only to be greeted by the pink haired girl holding out another take-out mug to her. She glared at Bubblegum's friendly smile and strode past her pointedly. The coffee was ignored, and the next morning and the morning after that. By Friday morning Marceline had had enough.

"Stop buying me fucking coffee already! Why are you doing this? Why are you so fucking happy all the time? Is there something wrong with your fucking brain?" she demanded angrily. Bubblegum smiled like she'd been given a compliment.

"Every single day I wake up and I'm glad to be here. Every day is a miracle if you make it that way. I'm just trying to share the joy in the form of highly caffeinated hot beverages." she explained, still smiling.

"Well, just, stop. It's creepy. You don't even know how I take my coffee." Marceline snarled.

"Bitter, hot and black as the depths of Hell. Like your soul. That's what Jake said, anyway."

"Jake can go fuck himself. Is that a black coffee without sugar?"

"Yep. Extra strong, I got the fancy premium roast espresso for you."

"Give me that." Marcy growled, grabbing the paper take-out cup from Bubblegum's hand with ill grace. She went to chug it and ignored the other girl's warning of 'it's hot'. Then she was even angrier because she burned her tongue. With a glare like it was anyone's fault but her own Marceline whirled from the room and stalked to her laboratory, barely speaking to anyone for the rest of the day and scowling at Jake especially hard because he wasn't anywhere near as funny as he thought he was, the bastard.

The next day was Saturday and after a cursory check around the lab to make sure the rats were as ok as genetically modified depressed experimental animals ever were, Marcy was at a loose end. Normally she'd read, work on her thesis, watch documentaries or... when she thought about it she wondered what the hell she even did with her time. With a frown she shouldered the door of the postgrad lounge open and by habit ignored the coffee Bubblegum held out for her-

"Why are you here on a Saturday?" Marceline demanded a second later when her brain kicked in and she whirled back to the girl sitting by the doorway.

"Checking on the rats. And I like it here, it's peaceful." the other girl replied with her usual cheerful smile. "Do you wanna hang out? I got this coffee a little while ago so it's probably cooled down some."

"No. I have important science to do." Marceline replied, determined not to like Bubblegum or her unicorn bag or the skirt decorated in happy little felt strawberries or the immaculately blended glitters and shades of her eye makeup. Of course that was the wrong thing to say. The pastel girl's eyes lit up.

"Ooh, can I help? I'm so glad you're letting me assist with the experiment, I love science!"

Marceline bared her teeth in frustration; that was exactly what Finn had said before he'd come to help for the summer. Less than an hour into his first day he'd been moping around and complaining he was bored because nothing had exploded and they hadn't dissected anything or reanimated any corpses.

"No, you don't. People say they love science but what they love is the end product. They love the lights and bangs and fireworks, they love the cool junk we can make with science. They don't love the months and months of repeating the same tedious experiments over and over, the hours of data analysis, the grind of tweaking variables by a tiny amount. People want dinosaur clones, they don't want to know how many butt-numbingly boring nights of data compiling it takes to establish a statistically likely family tree for obscure subspecies of ichthyosaurs."

"Wait, you can do that? Make a family tree of _dinosaurs_?" Bubblegum breathed, eyes sparkling.

"Yes. And it's dull. And you wouldn't want to be stuck doing it for hours. It's all about comparing tiny changes in the DNA of a highly conserved common sequence found in the descendants of dinosaurs with those of a known extant relative species, like a bird or something. It's extra complicated because actual dinosaur DNA hasn't survived in fossils so we have to use likely descendant species"

Marceline heaved a sigh when the eager expression on the other girl's face didn't budge an inch. If anything Bubblegum was smiling more brightly than ever.

"You want to see how boring constructing a virtual phylogeny really is?" she growled, "Fine. Follow me."

At some point that day when she was explaining what areas of low complexity were, the concept of the evolutionary clock and why biological samples were at a high risk of contamination if they were from older specimens not least because of the difficulty in isolating ancient DNA in the first place, Marcy found she'd stopped minding the cheerful girl quite so much. In fact it was almost pleasant to watch Bubblegum's eyes light up when she discovered something interesting, it was sort of a gratifying feeling to have someone hanging off her every word. Maybe Bubblegum wasn't too bad, Marcy considered as she sipped on her reheated coffee.

...

It took a while but very slowly Marceline began to look forward to the cheerful smile and the fresh coffee waiting for her every morning. By the end of the second week she'd stopped making coffee with her breakfast because she knew she was going to get a vastly superior brew once she got to uni, she looked forward to the quiet companionship of her lunch break on the grass at the back of the building or under the overhanging roof on days when it rained. Marceline had gotten used to answering a thousand questions a minute about the tiny details of every single thing they did in the lab, she'd even lent some of her old undergrad textbooks to Bubblegum who'd returned them within a week having read them cover to cover like some kind of freaky knowledge sponge.

With a brain that absorbed complex information so readily Marceline was at a loss to understand why the other girl had chosen to pursue a career in music instead of science but even she couldn't deny the simple brilliance of Bubblegum's composition skills. She'd played a variety of different instruments for their rats although they seemed to prefer the electric piano and Marcy could understand why. The music Bubblegum made with it was otherworldly, beautiful in a way Marceline didn't have the words to describe. All she could think was that it flowed like water, it conjured images of streams running over smooth, round pebbles in her mind. And when had she stopped thinking that Bubblegum wasn't an acceptable name? It wasn't, and yet even in the privacy of her own thoughts it felt sort of weird to call the pink haired girl 'Bonnie' when everyone knew she was called Bubblegum.

So it made sense that when Jake invited them all out for payday drinks at the end of their first month Bubblegum was automatically included in the group. There was everyone from their building going, a big crowd of people, and on the evening they were all due to meet at a bar in town Marceline found herself unexpectedly nervous. What should she even wear? She normally stuck with a sensible shirt and nice jeans in the lab, with her obligatory white coat over the top and her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail as per safety protocols. But this was a night out drinking with colleagues and friends, there didn't seem to be any rules on what she should wear. So in desperation Marceline called up one of her few close friends, who also happened to be her ex-girlfriend. She had an ex-boyfriend too but there was no way she was calling Ash for style advice, if she never spoke to him again it'd be too soon. The line connected and a voice she hadn't heard in a while greeted her.

"Yello?"

"Keila?"

"Groucho! Well this is a surprise. Friday night and you're calling me up, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

Marceline ground her teeth at the ancient nickname; she'd never been in her best possible mood first thing on a morning and her annoying and admittedly brief girlfriend had immediately decided that made her worthy of such an undignified epithet.

"I've got grey skinny jeans, red boots and my hair down. Which shirt?" she asked brusquely.

"Hot date?" Keila inquired in a tone that suggested she knew the answer.

"Not a chance. Drinks with colleagues. You gonna help or not?"

"Huh. From what I remember of your wardrobe, you've got a nice black and red plaid shirt, right? Wear it open over a print t-shirt or vest or something. You got anything like that?"

"Errr... black vest with an anatomically correct grey ribcage printed on it?"

"Why do you even have that shirt? It sounds suspiciously cool."

"Aunt Betty bought it for me last Christmas, guess she thinks my clothes are boring. So, will it do?"

"Yes, dumbass, that sounds perfect. So. You never answered my question. Who is she?"

Marcy switched to speaker phone while she pulled stuff out of her wardrobe.

"Who's who?" she asked with a frown.

"The girl you're trying to impress by dressing up all pretty. Do you know when you last called me? Easter. It was Easter, you needed help changing the oil on your car and you were a dick about having to wait for all of half an hour while I checked it. That was... almost three months ago. So either you've not been out for _three months_ , which is pathetic even by your standards, or there's someone new and special that you're making extra effort for. So, who is she?" Keila pressed. Marceline could just picture her face alight with gossip. She rolled her eyes, what had possessed her to call _Keila_ of all people?

"Nobody, she's just someone at the lab and I'm not trying to impress her. She dresses like it's a competition and I'm not in the habit of losing to people. Now get off my phone, Kei, you're wasting battery."

"Love you too, Groucho. See you in another three months."

Keila sounded almost happy about it; Marceline had never been able to work out why the curly haired girl put up with her or still took her infrequent calls. Probably they were friends or something, she figured with a shrug. But it was getting towards time for her to leave so Marcy hurried to finish dressing and checked herself critically in the full length mirror in her hall. Yep, she was happy with the combination of plaid shirt and ribcage vest. Keila was right, it was suspiciously cool. Time to go show Bubblegum that she wasn't just a people-hating scientist with a strict taste in coffee. She also owned a moderately cool shirt and had an annoying ex-girlfriend who was too damn nosy for her own good but gave passably useful fashion advice.

...

Their usual bar was already crowded and loud by the time Marceline arrived; she shouldered her way through the scrum of guys smoking around the door and finally spotted Finn and Jake waving at her from a table in the corner. It wouldn't have been her choice of night spot but then Marceline didn't know where she would have picked anyway except maybe for the nice café by the train station that had good cocktails and the occasional live jazz act. It wouldn't have been the sort of place that was packed with guys drinking really expensive micro-brewed ale with named like Leper's Asshole or whatever shit Jake usually liked. And it would have decent food, not that overpriced 'trendy' crap served on slates and God only knew what else to try to make it look cool. Pulled pork; it always seemed to be pulled pork of some kind. In fact as she got closer Marcy could see two slates with the remains of what she was willing to bet her right arm had been pulled pork burgers in front of Finn and Jake on their table. It wasn't even a proper table, it was a reclaimed pre-electric sewing machine bench with the machine itself taken off but the treadle and leather peddle powered motor belt still attached. Marceline hated bars like that.

"Got you a strawberry beer." Jake announced by way of greeting. "Where's Bubblegum?"

"I thought she was meeting us here?" Marcy replied with a frown.

"I thought you were showing her the way?" Finn asked.

"No, I thought she knew where it was. Hell. Do you have her number?"

She sent a quick message asking where the other girl was and if she needed someone to meet her in town then took a seat next to Finn and stared down into the depths of the murky red beer he handed her.

"You look nice." Finn ventured after a minute of uncomfortable silence.

"Thanks." Marceline replied neutrally.

"I went to one of those Turkish barber places to get a shave and stuff, it was good. Thought I'd look nice for Bubblegum." the blonde boy pressed.

"Uh-huh. You look very smooth." Marcy agreed listlessly. She failed to see how reminding the pastel girl of how baby-faced he was would improve his chances but what did she know, straight girls were weird.

A few more people from their lab turned up after that and the guys got into a long discussion of Dr Who spoilers and plots. Marcy downed her beer and then the tequila chaser Finn handed her. Every thirty seconds she checked her phone; no reply. Eventually Marceline got up and slid away from their table, shoving her way back outside unnoticed by any of her colleagues. She hurried down the crowded street away from the bar until she was somewhere relatively quiet and dialled the number Finn had given her. It rang through to voicemail.

"Hi, this is Bonnie Bubblegum. I'm away from my phone right now but if you leave a message I'll call you back."

"Bubs? It's Marcy, where are you? We're all at the bar, I texted but I guess you didn't pick it up? Everyone's expecting you, let me know if you're still coming, yeah? I guess I'll see you on Monday if you don't come along tonight."

She hung up the call and turned back up the street, shoulders slumped in disappointment. It was hard to deny that the only reason she'd even gone to the bar was because Bubblegum would be there and that despite their marked difference in personalities she genuinely enjoyed spending time with the other girl. It was gratifying to talk to someone who was just as genuinely interested in science as she was, someone who had never once called her weird or antisocial, who accepted her general moodiness and misanthropy as simply a part of her personality. They were as different as night and day and yet by some strange fluke they'd become friends. It had crept up while she hadn't been looking but suddenly Marcy realised that the best part of her day was sharing an early morning coffee before the post-grad lounge got too busy, sitting quietly eating lunch in companionable silence, listening to the haunting ethereal piano music with Science and Scabbers and their lab rat friends.

Despite her best efforts Bubblegum had slipped past her spiky armoured exterior and managed to actually get close to the distrustful mess of pessimism and gloom that was Marceline Abadeer, scientist and cynic. And the darker girl didn't know how to react. The last person who she'd let close had being Keila and that was just because the curly haired girl was convenient and she'd finally gotten to grips with that whole 'coming out' thing and wanted to prove to her mother that she was serious about her sexuality by bringing a genuine girlfriend home to meet her. Obviously with hindsight she knew those were pretty terrible reasons to pursue a relationship and Keila probably wasn't the best choice of girlfriend material. So she'd stayed away from people, too busy focussing on her scientific career to honour her father's memory. And then Bubblegum had silently spread through her system like a deadly infection and now Marceline was stuck with _feelings_. She didn't enjoy feelings because in her limited experience they lead to getting hurt.

Marceline went home. She didn't stop to let Jake or Finn know she was leaving and she didn't call or text Keila on the way to let her know how the night had gone. But one thing she did do before she lay down to sleep was ring the number one last time and listen to that cheerful, sunny voice tell her to leave a message. This time Marceline hung up without saying a word; what could she say? _"Just me again, I'm unreasonably worried about you and I wanted to hear your voice because I've had a few drinks and I'm trying not to panic that you just disappeared without warning. That's one of my triggers, I'm freaked out by people leaving."_ No, that was too much to reveal even to someone she'd allowed uniquely close. So instead she hung up before the message tone and closed her eyes, tried to quell the quiet churn of panic in her guts. Sleep was a long time coming.

...

Saturday found Marceline awake early and heading to the lab hours before any of her colleagues had even gotten out of bed. It was a long and lonely day sitting in the lab trying to focus on work but finding her attention sliding to the door far too often. There was no Bubblegum, no coffee or sunshine smiles. By the end of the day Marceline wasn't certain who was feeling lower, herself or the rats. She went home and spent the night trying to read and resisting the urge to call Bubblegum's phone again. She slept badly and was awake far too early again on Sunday. Despite having very little hope that the pastel girl would be there Marceline dragged herself to the lab anyway and spent the whole morning there waiting and worrying. It was so completely out of character for the cheerful girl to just disappear like that. And then out of the left side of her brain Marcy remembered that Bubblegum had mentioned playing a gig Saturday night; she grabbed her phone to google it but a moment later let out a sigh of frustration. All it said on Bubblegum's DJ Facebook page was that the gig had been cancelled due to 'unforeseen circumstances' and anyone who'd bought a ticket could get a refund from their vendor. Marceline spent the rest of the day in the library compiling data and trying not to think about anything else at all. By Sunday night she'd berated herself to the point where she'd resolved to simply focus on work from now on, let Bubblegum reappear or disappear as she wanted but the only way it affected Marceline was that they'd need someone else to finish the experiments if the pastel girl didn't show up. She almost had herself convinced of that by the time she went to bed.

When she arrived at uni on Monday morning Marceline had talked herself into just pretend like nothing was bothering her; it wasn't like she hadn't already had plenty of practice at that. So when she walked into the lab to find not just Finn and Jake but Bubblegum too sitting around the rat cage she really didn't know how to react. There was no mistaking that wonderful cotton candy hair but if she'd just seen the clothes Marceline wouldn't in a million years have guessed they belonged to the colourful, fashion conscious girl. She was wearing a plain hoodie but instead of her usual pastel pink it was a dull grey and topped a pair of very nondescript dark blue jeans. There was only a very small amount of makeup on her face, just a light foundation and some mascara, and it didn't hide the exhausted rings around her eyes. Marceline stared, unsure what to say.

"Hey." Bubblegum greeted her quietly. She wore a small, self-conscious smile and only met Marcy's eyes for a second before looking away.

"Hey. Uh, where were you this weekend?"

"Busy."

"Oh. Um, we were expecting you at the bar."

"Sorry. I was busy."

"Ok."

It couldn't be more obvious that Bubblegum didn't want to talk about it so despite her burning curiosity Marceline let it go and went about her normal morning routine of checking the rats, setting up the equipment and making sure everyone was on the same page when it came to what today's experiments would entail. She ignored the significant look Jake was giving her and instead chose to focus on her work. Bubblegum was there, obviously whatever had happened that weekend wasn't open for discussion but at least she hadn't disappeared without a trace.

As usual Marcy took herself outside on her lunch break, to the grass at the back of the building. It was a grey, overcast day with occasional rain showers and it matched her mood perfectly. She took a seat under the roof overhang and pulled her sandwiches out of her bag, turning them over and over between restless fingers because she didn't have much appetite.

"Can I sit here?"

The voice had her whipping around in surprise; Bubblegum was standing by her shoulder cautiously, fiddling with the strap on her own backpack and clearly unsure if she was welcome. Marcy gestured to the step next to her and shrugged.

"Since when has me wanting to be alone ever stopped you?" she asked, aiming for joking but missing her target by quite a wide margin. Bubblegum sat but her pale face looked stricken as well as exhausted.

"I'm sorry, I can leave you alone if you want." she mumbled.

"No, stay. I was worried about you this weekend. Looked up your gig, you bailed. What happened?"

"I can't talk about it right now." Bubblegum replied cryptically. She was rummaging in her bag for her food and Marcy looked over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of several small white boxes, the kind medication came in.

"Hey, what are those?" she asked before she could think better of it. Bubblegum snatched her bag away and fixed the dark haired girl with the most unfriendly stare she'd ever worn.

"Migraine medication. I get headaches." she replied with a frown. "And it's rude to look through someone else's stuff."

"Hey, sorry, I was just curious."

They sat in a tense silence for a while, not eating or talking, just staring out at the beginnings of another soft rain shower and listening to the call of the crows that roosted on the building's roof.

"Are you ok?" Marcy finally asked when the silence grew too heavy for her to bear.

"Yeah, never better." Bubblegum replied glumly.

"You look tired."

"I am tired. I'm also not gonna talk about it."

"I was worried about you this weekend. I came into the lab to see if you'd been around but I guess I missed you, I couldn't see your signature in the visitor's sign-in book. You know you can tell me what's up if you want to, right?" Marcy sighed, turning to look the other girl in the eyes.

Bubblegum visibly wavered, biting her lip and frowning slightly like she was trying to decide how much was safe to reveal. But she shook her head a second later.

"I know. I already said that I can't talk about it, ok? It's none of your damn business."

She got up with a huff and turned back to the door, leaving Marceline to gape after her. Since when had Bubblegum ever been sharp or unfriendly with her? With anyone? Marceline decided to not mention it again, for now, but she'd be keeping a close eye on the other girl. Her new resolve to just focus on work instead was completely forgotten in the face of the mystery.


	3. Chapter 3

**Onwards and upwards and all that jazz. This is a test post, the website has been buggy recently and I want to see if people get email notifications about this going up or not. If not I'll take it down. If they do then it stays up.**

 **My ongoing apologies to French speakers, I had to use google translate for the start of this and I reeeeally hope it's accurate. As mentioned before, in this story Hunson is the parent who died so Marcy grew up with a whole different set of parental expectations, which I'm exploring in this chapter. And there is some exposition and some mystery revealing too, I hope it makes sense! We're not quite there yet though, I wasn't gonna give you too much in one go *evil laugh***

 **As ever love and thanks to my amazing proofies and a special shoutout to my friend abelmayfair for being The Awesome. And to my gorgeous fiancee, mwah, you're simply breathtaking.**

 **Content Warning: google translated French, rudeness, exposition, backstory, medical junk ( _accurate_ medical junk though), off screen historical character death, unresolved romantic tension.**

* * *

"Marceline."

"Maman! Salut! Que fais-tu ici?"

Everyone looked around to the doorway of the lab and Jake's eyes especially widened in surprise. There was a tall, slender woman who looked like Marceline from thirty years in the future standing in the doorway staring around with definite distaste in her expression. Her eyes narrowed in dislike when they landed on Bubblegum's frilly cupcake parasol and delicate lace gloves.

"Ce sont mes collègues, Finn, Jake et, uh, Bubblegum." Marceline explained in a rush of slightly breathless French, gesturing to each of them in turn.

"Bonjour, enchanté de faire votre connaissance." Bubblegum replied with a neat curtsy. Marceline's mother's eyes locked onto the pastel girl with an even more assessing direct gaze and she nodded slowly, unsmiling.

"You speak very good French." she announced in a neutral tone.

"Only a little I'm afraid, I learned French when I was young." Bubblegum replied with a sunny smile.

"Maman, are you staying long?" Marceline interrupted a little desperately, drawing her mother's attention back to herself before the older woman could cross the line from simply brusque into downright rudeness.

"Non, I am meeting your aunt for lunch and thought I would drop in to see how your research is going. I did not think to find you taking a break this early in the day."

Finn opened his mouth to say that they'd actually been working and Jake promptly stood on his foot before he could make a fool of himself. Clearly his little brother had no idea who Marceline's mother was or he'd be resisting the urge to fall down in awe at her feet like Jake himself was.

"Come, Marceline, we will talk further in your office." her mother declared, gesturing imperiously at her daughter who followed her without a second's hesitation. The moment the lab door had closed they began what sounded like a heated discussion in rapid French again.

"What-" Finn started, but Bubblegum shushed him immediately.

"They're arguing, let me focus." she told him distractedly. "Marcy is upset her mother embarrassed her in front of us and... oh, her mother thinks I look like a circus freak. Charming. She thinks our research is pointless and that her daughter should be focusing her efforts on something with more benefit to science and Marcy is arguing that the emotion study is valid because mental health is important. And... Oh. Oh, that's harsh." Bubblegum whispered, mouth open in shock. "Marcy's mother just told her that play acting scientist with pet rats and little pianos won't bring him back. I guess she means her father. And... I think they shut the office door, I can't hear them anymore."

"Dude, how can you hear all that from this distance in another language?" Finn breathed with wide eyes. Bubblegum shrugged and avoided his gaze.

"I told you, I learned French when I was really little. And I have very sensitive hearing. So what's the deal with Madame L'Arrogance then, why does she think it's ok to barge in here and criticize her daughter like that?" Bubblegum asked instead, turning to Jake. It hadn't escaped her notice how he'd reacted when he caught sight of the older woman. The big guy blushed and rubbed the side of his neck in embarrassment.

"I shouldn't even tell you cause she's gonna legit murder me if she finds out you know. Not a word about this, yeah? Ok story time, so when I was just a teensy ickle fresher on my way to my first lab practical we all had to sign a registration sheet and I noticed that the signature above mine was one _M V Abadeer_ , like, the exact same weird looking surname that was on half of the shiny new textbooks weighing down my desk in my dorm room. It's not a common name so I looked it up. Turns out Marcy's family are like, the Kennedys of neuroscience. And based on that, and despite our obvious differences, I made a special effort to be her friend and I did a bit of research about who her parents were. It was a shallow thing at first, I naively thought maybe getting to know her would help me get a leg up in the scientific community. But she's awesome, just as herself. And I was pretty let down when she did talk about her family. Her father was some serious big deal professor back in the day and her mother was this amazing French-Algerian political refugee who fled to France when she was a kid then came here to study. Obviously she immediately married the brilliant professor and they had a kid. And then he went and died on them, and she had to retire from research to raise their young daughter. From what I can tell before she quit Dr Cécile Rahmani-Abadeer was to neuroscience what Professor Stephen Hawking is to theoretical physics. And she's never forgiven Marceline for making her give up her career to look after her, like it's somehow Marcy's fault she wasn't born aged thirty and completely independent." Jake finished.

"Wow, that sucks. So Marcy's like, half Arab?" Finn breathed, shocked.

"That's what you took from that story? Dude, there's a reason I'm the one on course to be the first doctor in the family." Jake sighed.

"Are you calling me dumb?" Finn asked with a frown.

"Yeah man, sometimes you're a total mouth-breather."

The boys continued to bicker while they got back to the task at hand, measuring the rats' general overall alertness, appetite and physical health as well as drawing a tiny amount of rat blood to check various hormone levels and compare with their baseline data from before the month's intensive music therapy. Bubblegum continued to stare at the door of the lab, straining her ears as though if she could just focus hard enough she might be able to hear what was going on three rooms away in the office. It was a while later when Marceline slid quietly back through the door and one glance at her face let the pastel girl know that the unexpected visit with her mother hadn't been pleasant. She avoided everyone's eyes and went silently to work spinning down the blood samples and mixing chemical reagents for hormone detection, barely speaking a word to anyone for the rest of the morning. And at midday she simply disappeared; one second she was there and the next when Bubblegum looked around her lab coat was hanging back on its hook in the prep room and her bag was gone. She must have gone to lunch while they were busy putting the rats back in their cage. Bubblegum waited until Finn and Jake were distracted laughing over some stupid football video on the younger boy's phone then slid away just as unobtrusively.

...

"Your mother looks so much like you." Bubblegum said neutrally as she folded neatly down onto the patch of grass next to her friend. Marcy just nodded, still unusually quiet and subdued. "Jake said she was Algerian originally, have you ever been?"

"No."

"Oh. My family are German on my mother's side, we always go to Munich for the Christmas markets."

"Uh-huh."

"Must be pretty cool, speaking fluent French."

"And Arabic, Berber and Spanish. Maman wanted me to be well rounded." Marceline sighed, like she was admitting something embarrassing.

"I learned some French when I was a kid, I was pretty good at it. Didn't get chance to pursue it though. I missed a chunk of school when I was a teen. I was sick for a while and never got around to catching up. If I hadn't gone into music I'd have loved to study science. What would you have done if you weren't a scientist?"

"Dunno."

"You could have been an amazing singer, you've got such a good voice." Bubblegum offered with a smile. Marceline frowned at her.

"I don't sing. Doing anything but neuroscience was never an option for me." she replied heavily.

"Oh."

They lapsed back into silence, both chewing their food quietly, and as soon as she'd finished Marceline got to her feet.

"I'm heading back in, are you coming?" she asked.

"I want to get a little more air. I'll be back in soon." Bubblegum replied softly.

She watched the other girl out of sight and when she was sure she was alone she reached into her bag and pulled out a pill-box, opening a compartment that was labelled 'Friday midday' and shaking out a handful of medication. Until now she'd been careful to only take her meds when she was safely locked in a bathroom stall but Marceline seemed so distracted that even if she did double back for any reason Bubblegum doubted she'd notice anything different. She sighed and downed the whole handful of meds with a swig of juice from her bottle; it had been a long time since she'd needed to take them one by one. And she really did want to get some air before heading back into that charged atmosphere. What with Finn's obvious and extremely unrequited crush on her, Jake's general nosiness and Marceline's bad mood because of her mother's impromptu visit there was more emotional static filling the room than Bubblegum felt able to deal with yet. It was overwhelming, she really needed to go lie down someplace quiet for a while but she'd said she was going to stay for the afternoon and she didn't like to break promises. Still, discretion was certainly the best part of valour especially when she felt like she might be about to get sick again. So with a sigh Bubblegum ran her hands through her hair, ignored the numerous loose strands of pink that came away as a matter of course and prepared to go let her new colleagues down about the afternoon's research.

The lab was just as tense as she's anticipated and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up simply to be in the room with that much raw feeling filling the air. But she couldn't just disappear again, Marceline had seemed to take it weirdly personal when she'd failed to come to their bar meetup. Not that she'd had a choice, but she just wasn't ready to talk to any of them about it yet. Bubblegum cleared her throat to draw their attention.

"I'm not feeling so hot, guys. I'm gonna head home and get some rest, I'll see you on Monday, yeah?" she said quietly.

"Are you ok? Can I walk you home?" Finn immediately offered, jumping to his feet.

"No, really it's fine. I was gonna call a taxi." she mumbled. Walking anywhere when she was rapidly feeling worse and worse was out of the question, she just hoped she could get home before it really hit.

"I'll drive you." Marceline offered unexpectedly, looking her over with definite concern in her eyes. "Don't even think about arguing, you look really pale. Even paler than usual. And it might take half a day for a taxi company to come out on a Friday afternoon."

Bubblegum didn't feel well enough to argue and she didn't really want to anyway so she just nodded weakly and mumbled her thanks. Marcy shrugged back out of the lab coat she'd just put on and fished her car keys from her pocket before shouldering her bag and motioning to the door. Bubblegum got halfway down the hall before she stumbled and had to stop for a moment. Her vision was swimming and her head was pounding.

"You ok?" Marcy asked in concern.

"Yeah. Yeah, just let's take it slow." Bubblegum replied carefully. She taking shallow, deliberate breaths: it wouldn't help for long but it might be enough to keep what she was now certain was going to happen at bay until she got home. Luckily they made it to the car without further incident and she slid gratefully into the passenger seat and closed her eyes.

"Right, where to?" Marcy asked softly as she revved the engine.

"You know the big apartment block near the park?" Bubblegum asked after a second's thought.

"Sure, out past the music college?"

"Yeah. Just there, I'm only on the first floor."

"Look, you're not gonna throw up in my car are you?"

"I... no, probably not. But you should know there's a chance I might take a seizure. I'm epileptic." Bubblegum admitted, looking away out of the window.

"Oh. Right. I, uh, do I need to do anything?" Marceline asked in a worried voice, though she was already focusing on negotiating the city traffic.

"Not really. Don't try to restrain me or put anything in my mouth while I'm in the seizure. If I don't come out of it within five minutes you should pull over and call an ambulance but they usually don't last all that long, like a minute at most. I can feel one building though, I thought it was just a regular headache but now I'm starting to get the tingling and stuff in my hands. I've got maybe half an hour."

"Right. Half an hour. Good thing you didn't call a taxi. Come on then, we're gonna break the speed limit a bit."

It didn't take the full half hour to reach the apartment building and that was lucky because Bubblegum was feeling like she was about to lose consciousness any second by the time they pulled up outside her block. Marceline insisted on half carrying her to the front door and Bubblegum turned to say thank you before the other girl left, but the words hadn't gotten past her lips before her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she slumped to the floor twitching and jerking uncontrollably.

...

A deep purring brought her back to consciousness and Bubblegum reached out instinctively to pet Peppermint's ears. But he wasn't in his usual spot under the blanket next to her, in fact she wasn't covered by a blanket and for some reason she was still wearing her shoes.

"Hey, welcome back. You gave me a scare."

That was Marceline's voice accompanying the purring and that made no sense because it would mean the other girl was in her apartment and Bubblegum didn't bring people to her apartment. She opened her eyes and stared around in confusion. Marceline was indeed sitting cross legged on the floor with Peppermint curled up in her lap purring up a storm and watching his mistress with unblinking yellow eyes.

"Wha?" Bubblegum rasped, trying to sit upright.

"Woah, take it easy. You got in my car then told me you were epileptic and about to have a fit. I got you home and you spazzed out on the floor. For someone so thin you're heavy as balls. I put you on the sofa when you stopped shaking."

"Thanks." Bubblegum replied thickly. She still felt like someone had been using her head like a football but at least it didn't seem like another seizure was building. She closed her eyes again, head spinning, and tried to get her breathing back under control.

"Your cat likes me." Marcy volunteered after a minute of awkward silence.

"He's a sphynx, he likes anyone who'll share body heat." Bubblegum replied faintly.

"Only you would have a naked cat. He looks like scrotum with a face."

"He's my baby, he's the cuddliest and friendliest cat I ever met."

"Yeah, I can see that. He tried to climb into my hoodie while I was still carrying you in from the hall."

They lapsed back into silence again.

"What would you have done if I hadn't given you a lift home?" Marceline asked curiously. Bubblegum sighed, staring up at the ceiling which Marcy noticed was painted in a very pale shade of pink.

"Honesty? I want to say I'd have gone to the building's admin staff, explained the situation and gotten myself someplace where there'd at least be someone qualified in first aid if the seizure didn't stop. But more likely I'd have locked myself in the disabled bathroom stall and hope I either came back around before they locked the building for the night or just... I dunno. Not." she finished guiltily. Marceline stared, horrified.

"That's... completely insane! You know that, right? I mean, what if the fit didn't stop? What if you hurt yourself? You might die! And you'd just- urgh! Promise you won't ever do that again when I'm around to drive you and help you! Ok?"

"Please don't yell, I can't deal with you being mad at me about this."

"I'm mad because I care about your health, you idiot! I don't wanna end up attending your funeral any time soon, don't you get that?"

Bubblegum smiled a little and closed her eyes again but didn't say anything and Marceline just continued stroking the warm, furless cat snuggled on her lap and staring at her too, trying to work out what she'd said to elicit that mysterious quirk of the lips. Bubblegum was hard to read, another mystery. Marceline hated mysteries because she could never just leave them be, she always wanted to dig to the very bottom and find out what was going on. It was what made her a good scientist and a crappy friend. But once someone had figured her out just as well as she'd figured them out then she was loyal to a fault; Jake was evidence of that. And she really was genuinely concerned for Bubblegum's health, it was a terrible idea for several billion reasons to just lock herself away in a toilet cubicle and wait for the seizure to pass no matter how much she thought she didn't need an ambulance. Marceline would press her more on it another time though, when she was feeling better and was more able to have a proper conversation about it.

"Your apartment is very... very." Marcy said quietly after another minute, unsure what word she was going for, unable to say 'busy' because that might be rude but also unable to lie and say 'pretty' because the jarring clashes of pastel colours and numerous textures was something of an assault on her senses. But Bubblegum just shrugged again, still lying motionless on the sofa with her eyes closed.

"I like being surrounded by comforting textures and colours." she replied faintly. Probably that didn't make a lot of sense to the other girl but Marceline just nodded like she had any clue what Bubblegum was talking about.

"Listen, I don't wanna be in your way. I should get back to-"

"Please stay, for a bit. I'm gonna be shaky for a while and since you're already here I'd appreciate the company." Bubblegum cut her off softly.

"You're not gonna start doing the Harlem Shake on me again are you?" Marceline asked sceptically.

"It's not likely, I don't take a seizure too often with my meds and if I've just had one it'll be a while before another hits. Like, they take time to build up. I've just been a bit... overwhelmed recently, I guess you could say. There's been more going on than I was used to and they've been happening a little more frequent than I expected."

"That's why you didn't come to the bar."

"I tried, I really did. I was on my way there. But the thought of all that noise and the crowd and everything... I ended up having a bad seizure waiting for the bu and I woke up in the hospital. They kept me in all weekend doing stupid brain scans and other unnecessary junk. I'm fine though, no damage done. I'd only been discharged for a couple of hours when I came into the lab that morning, I didn't have time to pick an outfit or do my makeup. And it's why I avoid the cafeteria too. I can't handle too many voices talking all at once, it's different when I'm playing a gig because the music drowns them out. But, uh, I've got some... sensory processing issues."

Marceline took a moment to look around the apartment, really examine it closely. The wall behind the soft leather sofa she'd put Bubblegum on was draped in a deep plumy velvet tapestry covered in what looked like hand-embroidered gold swirls. The floor was covered by a huge deep pile rug in various shades of pink and lilac, the small amount of bare walls she could see that weren't hidden behind bookshelves or display cabinets of collectables were the same soft pink as the furry cushions and patchwork quilt piled by the sofa. There were long cylindrical glass lamps full of bubbles and magenta LEDs, the ceiling was edged in flower-shaped fairy lights and there was even a metallic pink discoball hanging in the centre. Everything seemed like it had been carefully selected to be soft, tactile and pastel shaded, pink or purple, whimsical and over-designed. Marcy had seen stuff like that before when she'd been an undergrad working with autistic kids who needed a specific kind of environment.

"It's a sensory room." she breathed out loud. "Everything's soft and pink, I bet even the lights are pink."

"Yeah. So when I get overloaded I can come here and feel better." Bubblegum admitted.

"So, uh, I've seen this kinda thing before. Are you... on the autistic spectrum?" Marceline hedged carefully. Bubblegum let out a weak laugh.

"I wish. It'd make things so much easier, you know? No, I'm way more fucked up than that. Ok. When I was thirteen I started taking seizures, like all the time, and the short story is I got some brain surgery to help stabilize me. It took away most of the epilepsy but there were some complications. When I woke up I'd developed some issues processing stimuli."

She opened her eyes and turned to look at Marceline, to gauge how her confession was being received. It wasn't like she told just anyone these things but Marceline was different, she'd been different the second she'd opened her mouth.

"So, like, you can't filter out background noise and stuff?" the dark haired girl asked with a soft frown on her face like she was trying to figure it out.

"More than that. I have surgically acquired synaesthesia. I hear music, like, all the time. Every second of every day. It's why I wanted to be part of your study, because the way music affects emotion is such a big part of my world. And it's why I had to be a musician. I can't switch the music off and it gets unbearable if I don't try to pin it down on paper."

"And pink 'sounds' comforting." Marcy guessed. Bubblegum nodded.

"Stuff that I can see and feel affects the music. Pink things, soft things, they calm it to a point where I can hear myself think. The bass gets softer and the strings calm down. When I'm about to have a seizure it makes the music from 'Psycho' sound tuneful, everything gets so discordant and sort of, sharp. And that's another reason I have Peppermint. He's so soft, just stroking him is like the softest, warmest suede and he helps me stay calm especially after I seize. He's my sensory assistance cat."

In the end Marcy stayed until late, too interested to learn more from someone who actually had one of the rare conditions she'd read about as an undergrad. She was fascinated; the very concept of a brain processing all sensory input as a form of music went above and beyond any kind of synaesthesia she'd ever heard of. She was reluctantly getting ready to leave when an alarm on Bubblegum's phone beeped softly.

"Oops, meds o'clock." the pastel girl sighed, reaching for where she'd left her bag at the side of the sofa and helping herself to a handful of pills labelled 'Friday night'. "There's a sleeping pill in here too so you better head off unless you also want to carry me to bed. The music keeps me awake otherwise, I need something to help me block it out long enough to fall sleep."

Marceline ignored the slight twist in her stomach when Bubblegum mentioned carrying her to bed. That wasn't on the cards, very clearly Finn had already called dibs and besides Bubblegum showed no signs of being interested in her. Instead the darker girl went to stand, unfolding from her seat on the floor gracefully but stumbled when she tried to walk; her legs had gone to sleep a little. In slow motion she watched her foot tangle in the strap of Bubblegum's bag and the entire contents go flying as she dropped gracelessly back to the floor with a heavy thud.

"Marcy! Are you ok?" Bubblegum asked in concern, push herself off to the sofa to crouch by her side and automatically reaching out to brush the hair from her face. But like she'd mentioned before, she was still shaky from the seizure earlier and a second later she lost her balance too and pitched forward across the other girl. They both ended up sprawled across the beanbag Marceline had been sitting on, laughing breathlessly and grinning up at each other.

"Still got noodle legs?" Marceline asked with a smile, trying to ignore how her heartbeat was beginning to trip nervously. Bubblegum didn't seem to be in any rush to get off her and she was uncomfortably aware that they were chest to chest with the other girl's hands pressed close either side of her.

"Yeah, a bit. Thanks for rescuing me today." Bubblegum breathed. She was still smiling, eyes soft and thoughtful, like she was trying to decide if it was really a good idea or not.

"You're welcome. I'm just glad I could help." Marcy replied, equally softly and equally unsure. "You know, if this was a cheesy romance film we'd kiss now."

"Imagine that. I don't think it's a cheesy romance though. More like one of those weird low budget indie films where the plot doesn't make sense."

"You're a strange girl, Bubblegum."

"You have no idea."

And then the dangerous moment was past; Bubblegum found the strength in her arms to push herself up and away and began gathering together the spilled contents of her bag. Marcy let out a long, quiet breath. She didn't know if she was relieved or disappointed.

"Here, let me help." she muttered guiltily, turning away to hide the blush on her face. She started grabbing pens, notebooks, a box of medication-

"Hey Bubs, what's this one for?" Marcy asked curiously. She didn't recognise the name of the drug and it didn't look like any anti-epileptic she'd ever seen before.

"That's the secret to my immortality." Bubblegum said with a laugh. She pulled the box out of Marceline's hands and stuffed it back into her bag casually enough but there was something about her face that gave away her sudden panic. Marcy made a mental note to look it up later.

She left, still thoughtful, and drove to her own apartment in a daze. Was that a _moment_ they'd just shared, had the other girl been thinking about kissing her? Did she definitely want that? After all, Marcy didn't have a lot of experience with having a girlfriend and she was very wrapped up in her work. But Bubblegum was different, uniquely so. Finn didn't know how right he'd been when he insisted that she was special that first day.

As soon as she was showered and had grabbed a quick sandwich Marcy curled up in bed with her laptop, determined to find out what the mystery medication was. Her mind hit a brick wall when she tried to remember the name of the drug though. Tamo-something? Temozi... thing? There were just too many pharmaceuticals in the world. She tried as many various spellings as she could but her results were frustratingly vague. Based on her best-guess of the drug's name it looked like Bubblegum was either a recovering alcoholic, had severe psychotic episodes and should actually be in a secure hospital, had a brain tumour, an overactive thyroid or a severe blood disorder caused by previously overdosing on something. Or she was secretly a horse, it might also be a common type of medication used to wake up sedated horses. Marceline shut her laptop with a disappointed snap. There were too many similarly named drugs and she couldn't be certain of the spelling or even the name she'd seen. Besides it had occurred to her that looking up what medication her friend was taking behind her back was some pretty next-level stalkerish behaviour. So in the end she resolved to just let it lie; Bubblegum would tell her when she was good and ready or more likely not at all. It wasn't any of her damn business anyway.


	4. Chapter 4

**So the website has been buggy and a ton of people didn't get update emails for the last chapter. So if you didn't read chapter three, go read before this one or it's not gonna make sense!**

 **A quick note on pansexuality; I don't have time for people who think it's not a real thing. So either suspend disbelief for the duration of the story, go google it or just keep your opinion to yourself, kay? But don't get all over people for identifying in a way that you personally don't agree with. Representation is the key to a better future for everyone and I like to think I'm one little drop in that ocean. Anyway, that's my social justice rant over for today. TL:DR be good to each other. And read some Judith Butler.**

 **I'm setting up a (P)atreon account and I'd like to encourage those of you who can/want to to patronise me! Authors need to eat too, and yes I do have a job but with the way bills are and all a little extra income would be appreciated, especially since I put such a lot of time into my writing. Anyway, don't worry if you can't afford to or simply don't want to help me out. Writing is it's own reward.**

 **Content Warning: Tension, mother-fucking jokes, mild objectification of women, tension, allusions to no-pants-dancing.**

* * *

The atmosphere was still pretty charged in the laboratory when Bubblegum arrived on Monday morning but she didn't really know how to address it so she just carried on setting up her equipment and handing out coffee like nothing had happened last week. It was getting to be par for the course that things were tense between her and Marceline at least and it hadn't gone unnoticed. Bubblegum got the feeling she was about to have another uncomfortable conversation when Jake sidled up to her as Marcy and Finn went to fetch some fresh supplies from the main store room a floor below.

"So. You and her have this whole... eye blazing thing going on." he started. "You, um, playing on that team?"

She sighed and repressed the urge to tug on her hair in frustration because she didn't want to accidentally pull a handful out.

"Not expressly, no. If you must know I'm pansexual." Bubblegum replied with an uncharacteristic frown.

"I'm gonna go ahead and guess that that doesn't mean you're attracted to cookware, yeah?"

"Good guess. It means I don't consider gender important when choosing a potential partner."

"So, like, you're bi?"

"No. Pansexual. It's a separate thing, it's sorta more inclusive. Instead of saying "I like men _and_ women" I can acknowledge that the range of human gender performance falls outside of the two neat cookie-cutter stereotypes they paste on toilet doors. Geez, read some Judith Butler some time. The way we play dress-up as 'male' or 'female' has very little basis in our physical shape or even our biology and a lot to do with the cultural performance expectations we're raised with."

Jake blinked at her. Then he frowned, lips moving silently like he was trying out the term ' _human gender performance'_. Then he shrugged.

"You're a strange person, Bubblegum." he finally told her.

"Yeah, I've been hearing that a lot recently. Any particular reason why you're asking me ignorant and impolite personal questions?" she asked, not in the mood to explain herself more than she had to.

"Yeah. Cause I dunno if you know but Finn's in love with you-"

"The whole English-speaking world knows that."

"Exactly and I don't want him to get heartbroken. Especially since you're apparently in love with Marcy."

It was Bubblegum's turn to stare. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it again because she didn't know what to say, took a breath, tried to think, then finally found some words.

"That's ridiculous. We're friends, we enjoy each other's company." she finally managed to mumble.

"Uh-huh. You never take your eyes off her, you hang on her every word like she's some kind of elder god revealing secrets lost to the ages, you spend all your free time hanging out with her...Marceline doesn't just have casual friends like that, do you understand?" Jake asked, not unkindly but in a tone that suggested she was kinda dumb for not knowing.

"Oh my God, I don't know how you're even talking to me right now. I'm not trying to get between the two of you, I swear. I'm not a home wrecker."

"Woah, hold up. What? We're not- what do you think she and I are, other than research partners?"

"You know so much about each other and you work so closely and you guys always go everywhere together, Finn called her your partner so... I just... you're not together?"

Jake's eyes bugged out and he looked for a moment like he was going to choke.

"Me and... Marceline? Oh my God no! I mean, wow, no. Nope. Not ever. Oh _hell no_."

Bubblegum giggled at the look of pure horror on his face; when she really stopped to consider it she supposed they would make a pretty odd couple.

"What, you don't think she's hot?" she teased, grinning again and more than a little relieved.

"Hot? Yeah, she's a doll. Homicidal? Yep. Also homicidal. And homosexual? Gay as a fucking picnic basket. Homicidal homosexual and also fucking terrifying. But sure, she's pretty, and even hot." Jake relented with a sheepish grin of his own.

"Who's hot?" Marceline asked, making them both jump as she strode back through the door.

"Your Mum. I was just telling Bubblegum what I did over the weekend. Spoiler. I did your Mum." Jake shot back at her with a huge grin, not missing a beat. Bubblegum could have her heart attack at almost getting caught gossiping without fear of Marcy noticing since she was glaring at Jake with murderous eyes.

"You think you're a fucking comedian, Jacob Madigan." Marceline snarled dangerously.

"Your Mum seemed to think so."

They bickered in a sort of best-friends-who-mock-each-other way for the rest of the morning and Bubblegum watched them with fresh eyes. So Jake wasn't Marcy's boyfriend, that explained the odd lack of any obvious signs of intimacy between them. When Finn had first approached her about helping with the music for the emotion study he'd said "Come work with me in my lab, it'll be awesome, my brother and his partner are setting up this thing with music and seeing if it can like, directly mess with your brain waves" which, yeah, since she knew Finn it really shouldn't be a surprise when none of that turned out to be quite the way he'd phrased things. By 'my lab' he'd meant 'the lab I am pretending to work in to avoid getting a proper job for the summer' and by 'my brother and his partner' he'd meant 'my brother and the woman he's writing his thesis with who is a strictly platonic friend and academic colleague'. And Jake had said she was as gay as a picnic basket before they'd been interrupted. That was an interesting discovery and the more Bubblegum thought about it the more she could see it. She wondered why she hadn't noticed before. But despite being fiercely intelligent there were some things that she apparently missed, like Marcy batting on the other team, like Jake noticing the way she watched the fascinating and beautiful young scientist. Like the fact that she was staring again. But even Bubblegum couldn't ignore the way the music swirled to a dizzying crescendo in her head when Marceline smiled at her.

...

"Dude. Hey, Jake."

"Hm?"

"Do you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"Humming. Is that- is Marcy _humming_?"

Jake paused from arranging his box of micropipette tips into a neat order and frowned up at his brother before his eyes flickered to the prep room door where Marceline had disappeared a moment earlier with the rat cage. She was cleaning up and heading home early because apparently she and Bubblegum were going to do some mysterious female thing that the boys weren't invited to. Since it was a girly night of some kind Jake could only assume it involved painting each other's toenails and testing out makeup. Or... maybe not. Maybe it was a date? In all the years he'd known Marceline he'd never once heard her hum like that, never seen her face light up as instantaneously as when she walked through the doors every morning and Bubblegum was waiting for her with a coffee and a smile as bright as the sun. He sighed, put down his box of tips and made his way over to his younger brother. Time to let Finn down gently since nobody else appeared to be too worried about the boy's feelings but him.

"Hey man, listen... I, uh, I'm not sure that our master plan is working. It's been, what, five weeks? And she hasn't accepted a single invitation to hang out with you outside of work. Might be time to accept that Bubblegum just isn't interested." Jake started as gently as possible. Finn fumbled the glass flasks he'd been washing out onto the dryer before turning to stare at his brother with a frown creasing his brow.

"What do you mean?" Finn demanded quietly, glancing towards the prep room to make sure they weren't overheard. The cheerful humming continued just as enthusiastically as ever and his gaze flickered back to his brother's face. Jake sighed and gave him that trying-to-break-bad-news face that Finn had always hated.

"I just think she's into someone else, is all. It's not that you've done anything wrong, man. Just... Bubblegum's attention is focused somewhere else right now. You know what I'm saying?"

Finn nodded but his eyes had gone hard and angry. Yeah, he knew what his brother was saying.

"So you expect me to be _happy_ for you, is that it? You use me to get close to her then steal my girl out from under my nose and-"

"No, dude, not me! I mean-"

"You guys seen Bubblegum? I'm supposed to be driving her." Marceline's uncharacteristically cheerful voice interrupted them from across the room. She was smiling benignly, oblivious to the tension that filled the room. Jake looked guilty; Finn stared.

"No, you mean, _her_?" he whispered under his breath to Jake, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

"What? Is there something in my teeth?" Marcy asked with a smile that faded after a second as they just stared back at her.

"Hey, you ready?"

It was Bubblegum, arriving equally oblivious and cheerful in the main doorway. Marceline shot one last confused stare at the boys before she followed with a shrug. Looked like another Madigan brother bust up and she had no interest in getting involved in whatever they'd decided their problem was this week.

"Have a good night!" Jake said loudly over Finn, blocking out whatever he'd mumbled. It sounded suspiciously like he'd muttered _"_ _Judas"_ under his breath but Marceline couldn't be certain, he might have been saying anything. She let one last glance linger on the younger man's face for a second before the door swung shut and she followed Bubblegum out into the hall.

"Did you notice something weird about the guys today?" Marcy asked in confusion as they made their way out into the late afternoon sun together.

"More than usual? No, not really. I mean, I try to avoid Finn as much as possible anyway. He's been following me around like a lost puppy for a while now and I've tried to be polite about it but I'm just not interested in him like that. I'm running out of patience waiting for him to take the hint." Bubblegum sighed in reply as she slid into the passenger seat.

"He's, ah, not your type?" Marcy hedged carefully. She ignored the way her pulse sped up when she asked, told herself that she was only curious because Finn was her friend and she wanted him to be happy. Bubblegum shrugged and avoided her eyes.

"He's a nice guy. Very enthusiastic. But just, you know. Too young for me." she relied softly.

"He's only a couple of years younger than you."

"But he also acts young for his age. I dunno, I'm sure plenty of people find his Labrador-puppy personality charming but I prefer the people I date to be more... I don't want to say intelligent? Because I don't think Finn's dumb. But, you know, I can't have a conversation with him about, like, how to construct a statistically probable family tree for dinosaurs or anything. He wants to tell me about his beat boxing competitions and the sweet Dungeons and Dragons campaign he just played through. Those are good too, I just feel like... I don't know." she finished in frustration.

"Like Finn lacks depth?" Marceline asked with a knowing glace across to the other girl.

"Yeah, depth. Like he doesn't have many layers. I like layers."

Marceline nodded but didn't reply, squinting through the bright afternoon light to keep track of the other traffic on the road and lost in her own thoughts. So Jake's brilliant idea to get his brother and Bubblegum together by forcing them into the same lab hadn't worked then, and as far as she knew there were no other suitors on the horizon for the pastel girl. Not that she cared, she told herself hurriedly. She had exactly zero interest in Bubblegum beyond being friends. That weird almost-moment the weekend before had been a fluke, obviously.

"You taking stuff to the charity shop?" Bubblegum asked unexpectedly, glancing at the bags piled on the back seat.

"Nah, I have to go stay with my dumb mother for a couple of days while they fumigate my building. Apparently the people downstairs have gotten a nasty infestation of bed bugs and I'm taking no chances that they've found their way up to my place. Urgh, just the thought of it makes my skin crawl." Marceline replied with a shudder of revulsion. "And you can imagine how much I'm looking forward to staying with Maman again and getting treated like a particularly stupid four year old."

"If you don't mind the sofa you can stay at my place." Bubblegum offered, looking away out of the window again.

"Are you sure? I thought you didn't like house guests?"

"Only because they tend to ask about why everything's pink. And you already know. Besides, Peppermint likes you and he's an excellent judge of character. I mean, I understand if you don't want to."

"No, that'd be cool. If you're ok having me there."

"Yeah."

"Cool. Thanks."

They lapsed back into silence again for the rest of the drive and Marceline couldn't quite decide if she felt awkward or just really nervous about spending two nights rooming with her... _crush_ , she finally admitted in the very darkest and most private section of her brain. Fine, fine so she had a damn crush and Keila had been right and, dammit, now she'd just agreed to spend two nights on Bubblegum's sofa and it was quite probably going to be torturous. It was still better than staying with her mother, though.

...

Jake hadn't been far off in thinking they were doing girly things that night. It was just that they were doing very Marceline and Bubblegum girly things, like checking out her recording studio and staying up late to have a movie marathon. The studio at least was fascinating to Marceline who'd always harbored very secret desires to be a famous rock star. She'd never even thought about expressing that to her mother though, there was no way she'd have been allowed to waste her time messing around with guitars when there was serious science to be done. In another life, maybe, Marceline thought wistfully as she cast her eyes over a row of expensive looking electric basses.

"Do you play at all?" Bubblegum asked, noticing the way she was eyeing them.

"Wow, no, not even a bit. I'd never have been allowed to waste the amount of time required to learn when I was a kid and there's no point picking it up as an adult, I'll never be any good now."

"Sure you will if you practice. And wouldn't you just have fun with it for the love of music?"

Marceline shrugged, she'd never really thought about it like that.

"I could teach you." Bubblegum pressed with a persuasive smile. She could tell her friend was tempted, Marcy blushed a little and looked away with an embarrassed smile of her own.

"I suppose, if you didn't mind." she muttered to the floor.

"Well your experiments will be done in a couple of weeks and I'm gonna miss hanging out with you. You know I don't deal well with change, you don't want me to get sick do you?" Bubblegum pressed playfully. She was staring up into Marceline's face and hadn't realised how close she'd leaned until the other girl looked up to meet her eyes and her breath caught; their faces were only a few inches apart and that same nervous churning from the weekend before was coiling through her stomach except this time she wasn't held back by any terror of Jake's broken heart. Bubblegum stared into soft green eyes that stared back every bit as hesitantly and tried to decide if she felt brave enough to close that small distance between their lips and find out for certain if she'd read the other girl right.

"Hey Bubs, who's your friend?"

She was whipping around at the familiar voice calling cheerfully from the doorway and yet again the moment was lost.

"Lady! This is Marceline, my friend from the lab." Bubblegum replied hurriedly, hoping she wasn't blushing as hard as she felt like she was. "Marcy, this is Lady, my producer."

She was a tall, thin Korean woman almost drowning in a rainbow streaked caftan with shoulder length hair bleached to a platinum blonde framing her pretty face. From the way she was smiling at them both it was easy for Bubblegum at least to see that Lady knew exactly what she'd just interrupted.

"So you're the dork who stole my best DJ, huh?" Lady asked with an easy smile.

"Hardly 'stole' her, the hard part is getting Bubblegum to go home at the end of the day." Marcy replied. She shrugged and tried to look casual but there was definitely something a little defensive about her posture.

Despite the obvious tension it was fun to hang out in the studio, discover how their array of space-age looking equipment worked and unravel the mysteries of what actually happened day-to-day at a small, independent record label. Crystal Dimension Records might not be the most famous studio but they had a loyal fanbase and easily enough paying customers on their books to provide Bubblegum a steady income just for playing her music. To Marceline it seemed so much easier than the constant grind of securing grants and rushing to publish data before someone else ran the same experiment. And Lady was cool and fun to hang with despite her knowing glances between the two of them. Marcy of course was certain that she'd just imagined the whole atmosphere just before the producer arrived, she couldn't think of a single good reason for someone so amazing and gorgeous to want to kiss a boring nerd like her. Still, there was something a little assessing in the way Bubblegum was watching her from the corner of her eye as they left the studio a couple of hours later. Marcy was hyper aware she was being observed for the entire drive back to Bubblegum's apartment.

"You sure you don't mind me crashing on your sofa?" she asked for the eight hundredth time that hour, making the pastel girl laugh again.

"I told you, it's fine. I met your mother, remember? I totally get why you'd rather stay anywhere else than at her place, even my freaky Barbie apartment."

"I like your apartment. I just need a little bit of time for my retinas to adjust to the colour scheme and we're good." Marcy shot back as the other girl unlocked her front door. Peppermint tried to shove his way out into the hall to greet them the moment the door opened and Bubblegum swept him up in a hug which resulted in instant purring.

"Hey my little man! Did you miss me? Ah who's my little snuggle puss?" Bubblegum cooed as the bald red and cream cat rubbed his head lovingly under her chin. "Aunty Marcy is gonna be sleeping on Mama's sofa tonight, ok? And don't do your weird ass-wiggling thing on her blanket when she's trying to sleep, ok? It's rude."

"Am I gonna need to worry about him getting all up in my face in the middle of the night?" Marcy asked, only half joking.

"Nah, he usually sleeps with me. Unless you wind up sharing my bed you'll probably not see him until morning." Bubblegum replied distractedly. She was kicking her shoes off and trying to persuade Peppermint to jump down from where he was clinging stubbornly to the lace shoulder of her baby-pink shirt and she missed the way Marceline's shoulders tensed up at that comment. Of course she'd meant it innocently, Marcy berated herself. She needed to get her damn mind out of the gutter.

It was pizza and classic sitcoms on the TV that evening, they never managed to decide on a film so in the end Bubblegum just flicked through the channels until she found something they both felt like watching. Marceline spent most of her time trying to sneak glances at the other girl and basking in the warm glow in her chest every time she laughed. Probably it wasn't anywhere near as subtle as she wanted to be but Bubblegum didn't seem to notice and if she did she didn't say anything.

Every time Marceline caught her gaze lingering too long on the sofa she blushed and looked away. Meeting Bubblegum's eyes for more than half a second left her a bit dizzy. How could someone's mouth curving up like that have the power to make her feel like she was gonna pass out? Bubblegum must be a witch or something, Marcy decided. Because the longer she spent curled up on the beanbag cushion next to Bubblegum's sofa the more bewitched she felt.

"So, um, are you... uh... playing any gigs soon?" Marcy asked during a commercial break, casting around to find a topic of conversation that might ease the electric atmosphere in the room.

"Yeah, Sunday night. You can come along if you want, unless you're sick of my music already."

"No, not at all. I mean, yes. Uh. Yes, I'd love to come along. And no I'm not sick of your music. You know what I mean, right?"

Bubblegum laughed and turned her attention back to the TV as their show started again. Marceline stuck to silently yelling at herself inside her head about how much she sucked at making conversation with hot girls. Especially when they were lounging across the sofa wearing teeny tiny pyjama shorts with absolutely miles of long shapely legs everywhere. Marceline was pretty sure she got caught staring a couple of times but it was hard not to let her eyes wander to those heart stopping curves, they were drawn like magnets. They watched another couple of episodes in relative silence while Marcy tried not to hyperventilate every time Bubblegum glanced her way and smiled. Witchcraft, she thought dizzily.

Eventually the pink haired girl looked around and frowned like she was trying to work something out.

"I'm so sorry, why are you sitting on the floor? I'm taking up too much of the sofa."

"No, it's fine, I'm fine." Marcy tried to argue but the pastel girl wasn't listening. She sat up and pulled those amazingly long legs up so she was curled into a ball on one end of the sofa. It would have been rude to continue sitting on the floor so Marceline reluctantly got up and sat next to her, hyper aware of every place their bare legs touched.

"Thanks." she squeaked, and Bubblegum smiled at her again.

So that's how they spent their first evening together; sitting awkwardly on the sofa giggling over random sit-coms and sharing sidelong glances that were definitely less than entirely innocent.

...

"Marcy?"

"Nuh, whu?"

"Hey, wake up. I, uh, I need to ask you a favour."

Marceline opened her eyes and stared around in confusion, trying to work out where the hell she was from the unfamiliar surroundings of the dark lounge. Then she noticed Bubblegum's outline in the gloom and had a mini heart attack because she wasn't used to there being anyone else around in the middle of the night.

"Woah! What the hell! You can't just sneak up while I'm sleeping like that!" Marcy gasped, hurtling upright from where she was lying on the sofa and almost falling to the floor in shock.

"Sorry! I just... I wanted to ask you something and it's really embarrassing and I've been putting it off all night." Bubblegum confessed, sliding down next to her and wrapping her arms around herself like she was cold. Marceline automatically reached around to hug the other girl close and share body heat. Once her sudden adrenaline rush had calmed a little she felt weirdly calm, like all of her nerves from earlier had vanished and instead it just felt perfectly natural to be cuddled up with the pastel girl in the darkness. The scent of Bubblegum's strawberry shampoo hung heavy around her and as sleepy as she still was it was too hard to resist the urge to rest her face against that soft pink hair.

"So what did you need to ask?" Marcy asked quietly after a long moment of silence. Bubblegum sighed and shifted in her arms.

"This is gonna sound, I dunno... I don't want it to come off wrong or whatever. Will you come to bed with me?"

Marcy stilled, arms going a little numb and tense. There were those nerves again, looked like they hadn't gone far after all.

"You, ah, you want me to-"

"I can't sleep. I forgot to pick up my meds from the pharmacy today and I'm out of sleeping pills. I can get some more in the morning but the music's too loud in my head tonight and... I never told you this but the reason I was so determined to be your friend at first was because of your voice. It's so soft and calming, it's like... your voice sounds like the softest, pinkest thing ever. Do you know what I mean? When you talk it makes the music drop down to a whisper. And if you came into my room and just talked to me I could sleep."

"Oh. Oh! I thought- uh, never mind."

"Wait, what did you think I meant?"

Bubblegum twisted around in her arms and stared up through the gloom, searching the other woman's face intensely for a long moment.

"Did you think I meant something indecent?" she murmured, mouth curving into a gentle smile again.

"Well, you started it with 'will you come to bed with me' so, you can't be surprised if I get the wrong impression can you?" Marcy replied, voice a little breathy and strained to her own ears.

"And yet you're still sitting her hugging me, not running screaming in horror or anything. So what sort of impression am I supposed to get from that?" Bubblegum asked, still smiling enigmatically and staring almost expectantly into her eyes.

Marceline wasn't a great romantic, she wasn't even terribly experienced especially when it came to picking up on subtle signals from girls. But she knew what they were both dancing around and very abruptly she was completely done with pretending to be coy about it. She leaned forward and finally closed that small gap between their faces to press a gentle kiss carefully onto the other girl's lips. It was every bit as wonderful as she'd imagined it would be, a little hesitant and a little shy but no less tender for it. And then Bubblegum kissed back and Marceline's brain just went completely blank. It was like her heart had stopped dead in her chest, like cardiac arrest but amazing in every way. When they did part after a long moment it was to mutual embarrassed grins and racing pulses.

"So, um, if you still want me to, ah, talk you to sleep..." Marcy started, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly.

"You remember me telling you that life's too short?" Bubblegum asked instead. Marceline nodded, not entirely certain she knew where the conversation was going because there was no way it could be headed where it sounded like, right? "I mean it. Life's too short to hesitate. You might get hit by a bus tomorrow, I might drop dead for no reason. So, if you want, come to bed with me."

She stood, holding out her hand invitingly. Marceline hesitated for a single heartbeat then wordlessly reached forward and allowed herself to be pulled up from the sofa and lead through to the bedroom. Life was the longest thing she would ever do and it was too short and she didn't have any headspace at all to think about that paradox when she entered the bedroom because Bubblegum was kissing her again; her hands were skirting the edge of Marcy's pyjama shirt carefully then sliding underneath to caress the smooth skin of her stomach and hips and elicit a breathy gasps against eager lips. There were hands and lips on her skin and somehow she'd lost the pyjamas, somehow there was a naked and beautiful girl moaning beneath her touch and for the life of her Macy couldn't have explained how that had happened. She just concentrated on that moment and the feel and scent of the other girl, the way she sounded, tasted, the expressions on her face and the way her lips parted with a gasp. And when they did finally rest Bubblegum drifted into sleep feeling lighter and warmer than she had in forever, skin to skin with Marceline's effortless, silken voice murmuring softly into her ear and soothing the music down to a gentle hum in the back of her brain. Tomorrow they'd need to have a conversation about what just happened, about a lot of stuff, and it might not go as well as she wanted it to. But for now she was overwhelmed with a serene kind of lassitude and wanted nothing except to fall asleep in the arms of her lover.


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm so sorry this took so long for me to post! Gah! I had it finished a little while ago but I wanted to tweak it a bit and change a couple of things and... it snowballed.**

 **Sooo the song here is a cover of Broder Daniel's Shoreline which is a beast of a tune, but is a million times better when you listen to the Anna Ternheim version. Oh, yes, she made it so much better *waves to the Scandis in the room*. Anyway, it's a good song, I'd recommend giving it a listen if you get the chance.**

 **Without ruining the plot, the science at the end is a real thing, as is taking a daily dose of that particular medication instead of a few weeks of intensive therapy. There's some darkness warnings and some references to unpleasant stuff which I guess won't be a surprise to anyone who reads my stories regularly. And so, on with the show.**

 **Content Warning: miscommunications, more French (google translated, I'm sorry, my French is awful), tragic backstory, somewhat graphic references to suicide, more tragic backstory because feels, and big-ass giant huge reveals. HUGE ones!**

* * *

" _I'm not the girl I used to be,_

 _This town's got the youth of me._

 _All eyes turn hollow_

 _From the work of sorrow..."_

Marceline didn't want to wake up, she wanted to stay blissfully asleep on whatever cloud she'd laid down on and just let the half understood music wash around her. She was certain she'd never slept on anything so wonderfully soft as the bed she was currently lying in; it was definitely not her own and she was only confused about that for a moment before she remembered the night before. Wow. Well, better get up and confront the soft, feminine voice accompanying the strangely melancholic electric piano music drifting through from the lounge.

She opened her eyes to find that there was someone staring back at her and she shoved herself back in fright and almost fell out of the bed. Peppermint just continued to stare at her with unblinking green eyes and a deep, happy purr like he knew he'd made her jump and was proud of himself.

"Dumb kitty." Marcy grumbled sleepily, reaching out to let him rub his weird bald head against her hand for a moment before she sat up and looked around for her clothes. She glared hard at the cat when he just continued to stare at her; it was disconcerting to wander around naked with anyone watching, including Bubblegum's pet.

"Are you gonna turn around or something? You're creeping me out." she told him. He just purred a little more strongly and yawned like he was settling down for a nap on the pillow. "Fine, but you better not tell anyone what you saw or I'll make you into a pair of gloves."

Marcy's pyjamas were piled messily at one side of the bed; easy to spot because they were the only thing in the room that wasn't some shade of pink. The window was hung with plush fuchsia curtains in heavy, warm velvet and swirls of darker pink washed around the walls like waves rising up from the deep rose coloured floorboards. Even the door was pink; a pale champagne tone that stood out against its dark coral frame. Marceline distractedly wondered if Bubblegum had deliberately used every single tone of pink on the colour chart when she'd bought the paint for the apartment.

" _We are shadows, we are shadows._

 _Shadows in the alley._

 _You die when you're young,_

 _You die when you're y-_ Oh hey, good morning."

Bubblegum looked up from the piano and stopped playing the moment she saw the mussed morning hair of her guest, smiling a little nervously and standing immediately like she was slightly uncomfortable. That didn't bode well, Marcy thought with an internal sigh. Looked like she'd made a minor miscalculation when she'd assumed last night was as big a deal for the other girl as it was for her. Probably Bubblegum slept with all of her friends, kissed them all like she was drowning and they were her only lifeline. Sure, it made sense. Normal people weren't hung up on sex like she was; she'd been told by the very few people she'd dated that she needed to loosen the fuck up. As much as it galled to admit it, maybe Ash had been right. That constant internal monologue of self-doubt reasserted itself with a vengeance and it was all the harsher for her ignoring it all night.

Marcy realised she'd just been standing in the doorway staring awkwardly at the pastel girl while the inside of her head churned and she decided to belatedly play it cool. She nodded and took a seat on the sofa next to her abandoned sleeping bag, rolling it up neatly and folding the blanket for lack of anything better to do. Bubblegum sank back down into the seat behind her piano and watched Marceline apprehensively.

"Is something wrong?" she asked after the silence stretched awkwardly.

"No, I'm good. You, uh, got much planned for the day?" Marcy asked, avoiding her eyes. Great, Bubblegum thought to herself. Morning after awkwardness. That was exactly what she needed for her nerves on top of the anxiety about the conversation they needed to have.

"Not a lot. But I did want to talk to you about something important." she replied softly. She stood and came around to the sofa, sitting next to Marceline and staring at her face like she was trying to read the other girl's mind.

"Yeah, I figured. Look. I know how this goes, I'm not totally naive. This is where you tell me last night was a mistake and you see me as a friend and I respect that, you know? But I just, urgh. Ok, at the risk of making myself look like even more of an idiot than I already have, if you wanna maybe go out someplace some time or, I dunno, hang out and actually watch that movie? I'd like that. Just as friends, if you want."

"I... Oh. Right. Just as friends. Ok." Bubblegum repeated sadly. That wasn't how she'd wanted to start the conversation but she was still determined to get it all out in the open. "I, uh-"

Marceline's phone had other ideas. It rang obnoxiously loudly in her bag and she dived for it hurriedly, like it was a big blinking exit sign that would lead her away from the tense atmosphere.

"Salut, Maman!" she answered hurriedly when she saw the caller ID. "Non? Oh! Pardonnez-moi, j'étais avec un ami! J'ai oublié d'appeler. Pardon! Oui, Maman, je sais. Non, un ami du laboratoire. Non, pas Jake. Bien sûr, je peux être là dans une heure. Pardonne-moi. Je t'aime aussi, Maman. Je serais là bientôt."

Bubblegum sighed to herself. She'd forgotten to mention to Marceline that she spoke pretty good French and the other girl obviously thought she didn't understand because that was twice now she'd called her "just a friend" and she'd promised to be somewhere else in an hour. So Bubblegum needed to either swallow down all the bunched up courage she'd managed to scrape together and save it for another time or just blurt it out now, before Marceline left, and damn the consequences.

"Hey, I've gotta go. I forgot to call Maman and let her know I wasn't staying there last night and now she wants to yell at me about it in person. So, uh, look I'll call you some time, ok? I should probably... I'm just gonna go get changed." Marceline finished with a sigh and an apologetic smile, picking up her bag and making for the bathroom. Bubblegum watched her go with a twisted knot in her throat that dammed up all the words she wanted to say behind a block of solid panic. No no _no_ it was all going wrong, Marcy wasn't supposed to leave, they had to talk about stuff and she could explain and maybe they'd find a way to work through it and-

Too late though, the bathroom door opened a minute later and a fully dressed Marceline emerged. She hurried across the room, dropped an awkward kiss on Bubblegum's cheek, picked up her car keys from the coffee table and sprinted to the door. The anxiety dam keeping Bubblegum's words from escaping her lips broke just as the door clicked closed.

"I need to tell you something really personal and important and I'm scared that you won't wanna know me afterwards." she announced to the empty room, staring at the closed door with a fierce ache in her chest like she'd just really fucked something up. Dammit, that wasn't how the day was supposed to go.

...

Marceline did not call Bubblegum that day and she didn't reply to the text message asking her if she was coming back for the second night. It was cowardly, she knew that, but she didn't think she could deal with another late night mauling only to be given the cold shoulder next morning. Besides she had enough to deal with just surviving the chewing out from her mother for disappearing without a trace when she'd been expected home. Marcy passed a restless night in her childhood bedroom, wondering if Bubblegum was ok and if she'd misread things. But she'd said it was 'something important', what could it be except for the conversation about the night before being a mistake? Little though she wanted to Marceline had a feeling she was in over her head and needed some advice from a friend. Unfortunately she wasn't the most social type and friends she could open up to were limited, to say the least. There were really only two options; Jake or Keila. Marceline decided after much consideration to do what any good scientist would do. Ask them both and take the parts of their advice that overlapped. Two was a pathetically small sample size but it would have to do, no way was she asking her mother for dating advice. And then Marceline remembered that she had another parent figure, someone it was easier to open up to. She'd ask Aunt Betty, too. Finally at peace and with a plan to follow Marcy fell asleep in the early hours, calmer than she had been all day.

Next morning she was up early; sleeping in was not an acceptable option in her mother's house. And as much as Marceline had planned on escaping early to get some breakfast in town and then head over to visit with Aunt Betty, her mother's imperious stare from across the breakfast table stopped her in her tracks.

"Sit." the older woman commanded, and Marceline didn't dare disobey. She took a chair at the same worn, white wood table that she'd eaten all of her meals from growing up and spent many more hours sitting quietly at as a punishment for various juvenile rebellions. The memory of her angry sixteen year old self being forced to sit at that table and remove her brand new navel piercing under her mother's stern gaze came rushing back; nobody could destroy a bout of reckless teenage disobedience with just a glare the way Dr Rahmani-Abadeer could.

"Where were you the night before last, Marceline? I want the truth this time." her mother began without hesitation.

"I told you, I was at a friend's place." Marcy mumbled. She looked away, down at the faded paintwork, because under the direct scrutiny of her mother she'd end up blushing and making it too obvious that something had happened and that was not a conversation she wanted to have.

"That boy Jake?"

"No, I told you, a friend from the laboratory."

"I raised you, child. I taught you to use the bathroom by yourself. Do not think to hide anything from me. Are you dating him or just sleeping together casually?"

Marceline looked up in horror and caught her mother's steely expression full on. If it hadn't been so out of the blue then it might even have been funny. She gaped, unsure how to even explain herself.

"There is a bite bruise on the side of your throat." Cécile continued in a hard voice. "I simply do not wish you to make the same mistake as me and end up pregnant to a man married to his work. You deserve better than to be your husband's afterthought."

"I- Maman! For the last time, I'm _gay!_ I don't sleep with men, ever. Je suis _un homo_ , vous comprenez? I thought you'd finally gotten the idea when I brought Keila to meet you. I. Am. A. Lesbian. I'm not fucking Jake or any other man and for your information I was staying at Bubblegum's place."

Marceline realised her mistake half a moment after the angry words exploded from her lips and her hand instinctively flew to the side of her neck where the incriminating bruise must be. God fucking _dammit_ , her and her stupid temper! Her mother was staring at her like the top of her head might explode from the built up rage.

"I thought you were past this ridiculous homosexual experiment of yours. You are not a child any more, Marceline! It is time you settled with a stable man who will not compete with your career instead of wasting your time with perverse women like that pink freak, what will she be able to give you? I simply refuse to believe that two women can be more than friends, it is not natural and I will not allow any daughter of mine to- Sit back down!"

No, that was not happening, Marceline thought distantly around the horrified buzzing in her ears. She'd always known her mother had very specific views on what she should or shouldn't do and until that moment she'd never completely managed to rebel against them. She didn't even have a relationship with Bubblegum, not yet, and already her mother was saying they would never be able to love each other the way a heterosexual couple could? No. She was done with it, done with being controlled and put down and ordered around.

"I'm leaving, Maman. Don't call me until you can accept who I am and you have a full apology prepared." Marceline informed her coldly. She shouldered her bag and made for the door.

"Marceline! Wait, non, do not dare walk away from me!" Cécile commanded. But Marceline just kept walking, right out the front door and away towards her car. "You'll be miserable! Do you want to end up like your father?"

She stopped, hand frozen on the car door, and turned very slowly to face her mother. It must have been pure desperation that drove the older woman to even talk about Hunson because she knew what effect it would have. Years of therapy, thousands spent on trying to help little Marcy believe it hadn't been her fault and she still couldn't erase the image of his bloated, livid face and empty eyes staring out into nothing as she screamed and screamed for help because her beloved Daddy was hanging from the garage ceiling by a garden hose pulled tight around his neck. In two quick strides Marceline had covered the distance between them, shaking with rage and the same phantom terror the memory always caused her. She got up close, invading her mother's personal space with her face set rigid in fury, and for the very first time in her life Marceline saw a definite spark of fear in her mother's eyes.

"Daddy wasn't perfect and finding him dead fucked me up in ways you can't even begin to imagine, but don't you think for one second that you can bring me to heel like a trained bitch by using his memory to guilt trip me. I'm not ashamed of my father or the way he died. Daddy would have wanted me to be happy and fuck whatever society thinks. If that's with Bubblegum or any other woman then it's none of your goddamn business, you understand?" she snarled, almost stumbling over her words with fury.

For once Cécile had nothing to say and simply watched with her mouth frozen halfway open in shock while her daughter whirled back to her car, flung herself inside and drove away too fast.

...

Aunt Betty opened the door almost before she was finished knocking, looking her up and down with a sigh before pulling her into a rather surprising hug. It took Marceline a moment to recover enough to hug her aunt back and then she was being ushered inside the cozy little house Betty had lived in for as long as her niece could remember.

"I don't suppose Cécile ever meant it as a compliment when she said it but she's right, you are so like your father." Betty started with a sad smile. Marcy just shrugged and avoided her gaze.

"She called you?"

"She knew where you'd go. And she's very upset and despite being one of my oldest friends I have to say that this time she's brought it on herself and thoroughly deserves it. But really, Marcy, you want to marry a girl from the circus?"

That startled a laugh from Marcy and she shook her head with a rueful grin; trust Maman to mess up insulting her friend properly.

"She's not from the circus, Maman just can't imagine anyone having pink hair and not being some kind of weird performer. And, hell, Betty, we're barely more than friends. I don't want to marry her, like, not imminently, you know? I do really like her though. More than I've liked anyone in a long time. Her name is Bubblegum, well it's actually Bonnie but nobody calls her that. She's a musician. Signed to a record label and everything."

"And I think she sounds lovely, personally. The perfect antidote to your solemn, solitary self. Marceline, darling, you're still young. You should be out having fun, not slaving away to fulfil some bizarre revenge fantasy your mother has for Hunson taking his life. Go do normal twenty-something things, go date a girl with pink hair and go to music festivals, go on holidays with your friends, get drunk and dance until the sun comes up. Take it from someone old, youth is wasted on the young. And it'll go by quicker than you realise. Do not let your bitter, regret filled mother rob you of that." Betty told her gently. "You leave Cécile to me, I know how to manage that old drama queen. Go fall in love with your circus girl."

They'd retreated to the sofa with Marceline's head rested dejectedly on her aunt's shoulder while Betty stroked her hair soothingly. She sighed and closed her eyes; it was all very well for Betty to tell her to go wild but she had a horrible feeling that her low level paranoia had already fucked things up with Bubblegum.

"I don't think my circus girl wants to know me right now." Marceline admitted in a small voice.

"Oh? Why's that?" Betty asked, still calm and soothing.

"Because we were supposed to have a serious conversation and I got panicky and left. I ignored her calls and texts. I don't think she's gonna want to dance with me until the sun comes up."

"Marceline, did I ever tell you about Simon?" Betty asked after a long moment. Marcy sat up and shook her head; she'd thought there was nothing about Betty that she didn't know.

"No. Who's Simon?"

"A very long time ago, long before you were born, he was my fiancé. We were so young and in love! Too young to be anything but naive and full of hope for the golden future we were so certain we'd have together. I still think of him all the time, every single day. But you see, Simon was sick. His father had died young from a disease that at the time they'd been unable to diagnose and it was only when one of his cousins broke the news that he was sick too that my Simon got tested. He had Huntington's disease. He left, rather than let me watch him die slowly, and I suppose he must have passed on a good while back. I never saw him again after the day he told me to keep the engagement ring. He said he'd love me until his dying breath and I never doubted that he kept that promise. After that I switched the focus of my research to neuroscience and ended up working in your father's lab, and you know the rest. So you see, even the most perfect and most heterosexual romances can end in heartbreak. What matters is that you give it your all. It's the things you don't do that you regret, even if you get hurt. I regret not fighting to stay by Simon's side and nurse him until the end. I regret that I don't know when he died or where he's buried. But I don't regret loving him. Don't let some stupid argument or a small thing like a misunderstanding stop you from finding out how far you could go with this girl, Marcy. Go on. Go find her and have that serious conversation."

Marceline tried to wipe the lone tear away from her cheek before Betty could notice but her eagle eyed old aunt was already stroking her face with the back of one soft, lined hand before she could even move.

"Don't cry for me, darling. I don't regret a single second of knowing Simon. I treasure the memories of the time we had and I live happily knowing my life contained such fierce love. That's why your mother is still so broken from losing your father, she can't understand how he could leave if he truly loved her. Hunson was very sick, Marceline. But he would rather have ended it on his own terms than let the two of you watch him die piece by piece every day. You understand that, don't you?" Betty asked softly.

"Yeah. I told Maman, I'm not ashamed of him. I never was. I just wish he'd been able to win that fight." she replied, voice breaking a little on the end because it was still like a knife in her heart to think about her father.

"I know, darling. But sometimes choosing the means of our defeat is the only victory we can ever really have. Your father chose to end his pain and who can say that it wasn't his choice to make? And you can choose to be happy no matter what your mother says about it. Perhaps one day it will defeat you, but that's your choice to make. Go girl. Seek happy nights to happy days."

"I love you, Betty." Marcy sighed, hugging her aunt tightly before standing up and sniffing away the last of her sadness.

"I know you do, darling. And I love you. Simon would have loved you too, he'd have treated you like his own daughter. Now go, before your girl thinks you don't care about her."

Marceline left, feeling strangely at peace and very close to her aunt, the woman who'd been like a second mother to her since she was a baby. Time to go have that serious conversation with Bubblegum even if she was going to end up being let down. She'd still have the memory of that one night whatever else happened and she wouldn't ever regret that.

There was no reply when she knocked on Bubblegum's apartment door and the pastel girl's mobile phone just went to voicemail again. Marceline cringed and hung up the line without leaving a message; had she landed her crush in the hospital from another bad seizure by freezing her out like that? There could be a perfectly innocent explanation though and Marcy didn't want to jump to conclusions. She sat in her car outside the other girl's apartment building and tried to think. In the end the only plan she could come up with, other than sitting there for hours like a creepy stalker, was to dig out the Crystal Dimension Records business card she'd stashed in a pocket of her bag and call Lady. The Korean woman picked up the third time Marceline called, sounding tired and not too happy at presumably being woken.

"Who is this? It's a Sunday, it's the middle of the day. Some of us are trying to sleep off hangovers." she grumbled into the phone.

"Lady? Hi, it's Marceline. Bubblegum's friend."

"The science geek, right?"

"Yeah, that's me. Do you know where she is? I came by her place and she's not here, I wanted to talk to her."

"Unless she snuck into bed next to me when I stumbled home this morning I have no idea where she is. And my bedroom is, unsurprisingly, free of female guests. So no, I don't know where she is or when she'll be back. If she took her equipment she probably won't be home until after tonight's show. Can't this wait until tomorrow? I thought you worked together?"

"Wait, she's playing a show tonight?"

"This evening at Sugar Cube in town, you know where it is? The jazz place?"

"The jazz cafe! Awesome. Yeah, I know it. What time?"

"She's on at eight. Go bother her then, I'm still too hungover to take social calls."

Lady hung up the line without even saying goodbye but Marceline didn't care, she had a concert to prepare for. First of all, she needed backup. There was no way she could turn up without her best wingman. So without bothering to call first she put her car in gear and headed over to Jake's place instead.

...

"Thank you, Sugar Cube! I'll be back next Sunday night with your jazztronica chillout fix to set you up for the week ahead. Don't forget to follow me on Facebook and Instagram and download this week's set from iTunes. Good evening, good night and be good to each other."

Bubblegum left the small stage to deafening applause, head still ringing with the complex rhythms and harmonies of the set she'd just played. She was desperate to get someplace with less flashing lights and eyes staring at her, not that they were usually too likely to set off a seizure. But since she'd been pretty much worrying herself stupid all weekend about Marceline's abrupt departure and the ensuing panic that she'd crossed a line with the other girl she'd been much more on edge than usual and she didn't want the stress headache to develop into anything more serious. So it was a relief to reach the sanctity of the backstage area, really just the function room of the cafe that she used to get ready for her set in. Lady met her with a hug and her usual grin; she was always there to support her star act and best friend.

"You slayed, like always. How are you feeling?" the Korean woman asked, frowning after a second and searching Bubblegum's pale face with worried eyes.

"I'm fine, just tired. I, uh, I didn't sleep so well." Bubblegum replied, carefully avoiding the other woman's concerned chestnut eyes.

"Do you feel up to a small surprise?" Lady asked cryptically.

"What sort of surprise? It if requires me to stay up late then no. If it involves chocolate then yes."

"As if I'd ever forget your post-gig chocolate. No, someone came backstage to talk to you. Someone I think you need to have a conversation with."

Bubblegum stiffened in anticipated surprise before she'd even heard the awkward 'Hey' from behind her. She knew who it was, she'd recognise that amazing, velvety voice anywhere. When she turned with a blush already gracing her cheeks it was to find Marceline and Jake standing in the doorway. The big blonde guy waved and smiled and Marcy even managed a self-conscious quirk of her lips by way of greeting.

"Hi." Bubblegum replied softly, unsure what to say or think. She was still in her stage makeup, looking even more outrageous than she normally did at the lab with a burst of vivid pink glitter running like a filigree mask across her eyes and nose and metallic golden lips crowned with an over-sized aquamarine ball closure in her piercing ring. Suddenly she felt incredibly stupid next to the two serious young scientists; perhaps Marceline's mother had been right and she was a circus freak.

"Hey Jake, this is Lady, a rainbow goth music person who parties harder than you, I guarantee it. Lady, this is Jake, he's my lab partner and knows how to salsa. Sounds like they're playing your jam out there dude, you should go show her your moves." Marceline suggested, pointing to the door in that ever so subtle way she had. Jake rolled his eyes but grinned anyway, holding out his arm to the Korean woman in a gentlemanly manner.

"Milady, it's my pleasure to make your acquaintance." he said when she cautiously took his arm and allowed him to escort her from the room. "May I have this dance?"

"Whatever, science dork. You wanna get wrecked? The barman's holding a bottle of the good tequila for me." they heard her ask him as they disappeared down the hall before the general background noise and dull music from the front of the cafe drowned them out. That just left Bubblegum watching Marceline awkwardly rub her neck over what looked like a faint hickey. She blushed again but forced herself to open her mouth anyway and they ended up speaking at the same time.

"Look if you wanna keep hanging out-"

"Sorry that I ran out on you the other day, see-"

"No, you first-"

Marceline took a deep breath and tried to get her thoughts in order. It had all been so easy when she'd rehearsed what she wanted to say on the drive over.

"I like you, ok? And I don't want to make it awkward for you, we can totally just be friends if that's what you want. But I, uh, I just wanted you to know I'm open to the possibility of more, if you wanted. I haven't liked someone like this in a long time and I just, I got scared and panicked. I thought you were about to throw me out anyway so I figured I should just save us both the trouble." Marceline finally confessed. Halfway through her little speech she looked down at her feet because it was too hard to keep eye contact with the savagely beautiful girl staring at her like every word was ripping a little piece of her soul off.

"You should sit down." Bubblegum replied. Marceline looked up; that wasn't the response she'd been expecting. The pastel girl had retreated to one of the plush sofas pushed up against the far wall and sunk down gratefully into the soft cushions. She didn't know how much longer her legs would hold her upright with the weight of the anxiety pushing on her mind. Marceline crossed the room and sat next to her cautiously, fidgeting with her long tapered fingers in an unconscious display of nerves.

"It's not that I don't like you, Marcy. I... I like you more than I probably should. I've always been really careful not to get feels for people but somehow you managed to work your way past that without me noticing." Bubblegum admitted. To her surprise Marceline was grinning, still avoiding her eyes but a little less tense than she had been.

"You pretty much did the same to me. I hated you at first, I was too comfortable hating everyone and everything. But then you kept being so curious and cheerful and pretty, in that order, and I don't even know how it happened but after a little while I didn't want each day to end because we were having too much fun hanging out. So, um, do you maybe wanna go on, like, a date some time?"

"It's not quite that simple." Bubblegum replied, so quietly that the other girl was forced to lean in a little to hear her. "Look, before this goes any further, you need to know something about me."

"You have a secret husband in the Navy and you're moving to Australia with him?"

"What? No! Marcy, I'm serious! I wanted to tell you yesterday morning but you took off before I could, and I'm really nervous because I don't tell people because they always make a fuss and really it's no big deal which is funny when you think about it since I'm so scared to let anyone know and-"

"Bubs, you're rambling. What is it that's so big and scary that you're worried it'll frighten me away? Marcy asked, cutting her off gently. Bubblegum took a couple of deep breaths and looked down at the floor. She could never stand seeing the mixture of pity and horror in people's eyes when they found out.

"I have an incurable brain tumour." she whispered finally. God, no matter how many times she said that it was still painful to hear out loud. And then to her intense irritation Marceline started to laugh. "It isn't funny! It's really serious, like, one day it's gonna kill me! Stop laughing!"

"I'm sorry, it's not, oh man I don't think cancer's funny. I just- Bubs, I'm a _neuroscientist._ And you have a brain disorder. I mean, outside of those tragic patient-doctor mutual but unfulfilled longing scenarios, when would this even happen in the real world? This is crazy. I'm crazy. I mean, like, for real. In a since-we're-confessing-things way. I've had really serious depression since I was seven, my father hanged himself in the garage and I found him dead which didn't help at all but I was probably always gonna get sick because depression is hereditary and stuff. So, like, we're both kinda fucked up. So what do you wanna do for a date? Dinner, a movie?"

Bubblegum stared at her. That wasn't usually how her revelation was received by people. She'd been expecting tears, maybe accusations and screaming or something.

"You... you want to go to dinner with the dying girl?" she asked in a tone that suggested she hadn't quite gotten to grips with how crazy Marceline really was.

"Yeah. I mean, you're not actually dying right now are you? Do you wanna go to dinner with the crazy girl?"

"Doesn't the fact that I might drop dead any day bother you?"

"Yeah? Of course. I mean, I might even die before you do if the depression gets too bad. Obviously, I don't want either of us to die. But, like, we're alive right now so we should make the most of that. Don't you think?"

"You are definitely crazy." Bubblegum murmured as she leaned in and kissed Marceline again, like she'd wanted to ever since the other girl had left her apartment.

"Yeah? My mother seems to think so. She expressly forbade me from marrying a girl, especially you." Marcy replied a little breathlessly when they came back up for air.

"Dinner first, I think. As tempting as it is to horrify your mother with our engagement we should probably get to know each other a little better. You wanna come over to my place tonight and we can talk?"

"What about Jake and Lady? Shouldn't we tell them we're going?"

"Nah, if I know Lady she's already lead him home by the pants. And he won't be in work tomorrow, he'll be too hungover. And bruised. We've got all night, if you want it."

So that's what they did, they went home and curled up on Bubblegum's sofa together and hugged and talked until the sun came up. Bubblegum told Marceline all about getting a cancer diagnosis as a thirteenth birthday present instead of the hair curlers she'd asked for, because healthy teens didn't just develop severe epilepsy out of the blue so she spent the morning she should have been shopping with her mother inside an MRI scanner. Marceline told Bubblegum about growing up with the knowledge that her father's suicide was a symptom of the crippling depression she had probably inherited and the fear that one day she'd end up like that, or that somehow having her had made him worse and she was actually to blame for his death. Bubblegum told her in no uncertain terms that that was horseshit and nobody was to blame except the illness.

"But this sickness could easily kill me one day. I just never know if I'm going to lose my fight to it like my father did, if it might just get worse for no reason and that's it, game over. Or I might live a perfectly normal lifespan and just control my symptoms with my meds. I just don't know." Marcy sighed.

"Well yeah. Same." Bubblegum shrugged. "At the moment my tumour is really slow growing and pretty well controlled with my daily chemo meds. They're not enough to make me sick or properly bald or anything, just to keep me nauseous and stop my brain trying to self-destruct. That's why I needed all the brain scans when I took a fit in public a few weeks ago. They needed to check I wasn't about to die on their observation ward and cost them a ton of paperwork."

"And did you?"

"Yeah, I died. I'm actually a ghost now. Wooooo!"

Marcy laughed and pressed a kiss against Bubblegum's cheek just because she could.

"So wait, when I asked you what the meds were for and you said they were the secret to your immortality..." Marcy asked, brow furrowed in abrupt thought.

"Yeah, technically. Those are my chemo meds. The secret is that a chunk of my brain got taken out when they did the epilepsy surgery and they sorta, somehow made the cells immortal in the lab, for research? Even after I'm long dead a little bit of my brain will keep on living on some scientist's bookshelf or whatever."

"Immortalised cell line. Yeah, they make the cells divide faster than they can die off so there's always new growth to try out treatments on. Wow. That's... There's every chance I already messed around with some of your brain matter as an undergrad."

"Technically speaking I'm immortal, as well as dying. Because fuck logic, I guess? And you're a mad scientist." Bubblegum teased with a playful smile. Marcy grinned, she could get used to being made fun of if it was by Bubblegum.

"Hey Bubs? Sun's coming up." she murmured around a yawn after a couple of minutes of comfortable silence.

"Mm?"

"Bed time?"

"Mm, but I still don't have my sleeping pills. I forgot again."

"I'll go get them for you when the pharmacy opens. Come on, I'll talk you to sleep."

This time Marceline really did talk the other girl to sleep, just random stuff about work and life and all the stuff she wanted to do one day, when she got the time. Bubblegum wasn't sure if she managed to answer out loud after the first few minutes, if she was really hearing and understanding the words or if it was just part of some vivid half-dream. But she fell asleep with a smile on her face and an arm curved possessively around Marceline's waist. She supposed that nobody knew how many tomorrows they had left, really. The best thing about knowing you were dying was it helped you make every today count. Tomorrows could wait so long as they had today.


End file.
